NGE: The Cutting Room Floor
by Lucretius20
Summary: NGE: CRF is a humor fanfic by esselfortium and myself showing the inevitable insanity of the unseen off-days in the NGE universe.
1. Mr Lobster's Adventure, Part 1

It has recently come to our attention that _Evangelion_'s tumultuous production actually resulted in a last-minute rewriting process far more encompassing than previously thought.

Under time, censorship, and budget considerations, nearly an entire season's worth of planned and scripted material was scrapped entirely, with a selection of segments deemed most important to the story hastily being rearranged and composited into the final 26 episodes we are familiar with today. It is rather surprising that viewers never noticed the missing episodes, as the characters' interpersonal relationships and even the revised ending itself make very little sense without them.

Hoping to benefit the larger fan community, we have taken the liberty of separating out the new and interesting material from this collection of scripts. For readability's sake, the resulting scenes have been arranged into the order that seemed most logical and translated into a digestible English prose form. Here, these striking lost episodes are presented in a complete form for the first time ever to an English-speaking audience. We hope this rare look into the production process of _Evangelion_ will provide readers with a new understanding of what the series very nearly became.

_Evangelion: _The Cutting Room Floor

Episode 35: Mr. Lobster's Important Adventure, Part II  
Or, The Mystery of the Copper Keeper Clapper Caper

* * *

Rei Ayanami was awoken from her dreamless sleep by a buzzing and whirring sound. She checked her arms to see if she had become a giant insect, but it was not so. Red eyes snapping open to glance out of her apartment window, she observed a large industrial crane and a man with a yellow hardhat drilling on the roof of the apartment complex next door. The neighborhood she lived in was replete with construction projects and men with facial hair offering her strange powders and syringes which, following Commander Ikari's advice, she did not take.

Rei stepped down from the bed. The cold linoleum floor led her to consider the prospect of procuring slippers someday.

Many who knew Rei Ayanami would think that she dressed herself without a great deal of deliberation or effort, but this was decidedly not the case. In reality it was a long, arduous, and thought-intensive task that the pale-faced girl had made appear easy via long years of practice and the possession of an iron will.

Pulling open the doors to her wardrobe, Rei's eyes followed across its interior from left to right and found its contents to be just as she had last left them. She counted seven school uniforms, each of them an identical white with a turquoise skirt and vest, and at the end of the row was a frilly seven-layer purple dress of the finest Turkish polyester, extravagantly decked out in yellow polka-dots and topped with a Carmen Miranda fruit-hat upon which were precariously balanced an orange, an apple, three bananas, a pineapple, and a multitude of grapes.

Rei was fully aware of the importance of the choice that lay before her; in fact, she believed it would be one of the most potentially life-altering decisions she would make today.

An avid reader for much of her young life, she had at one point entertained the possibility that her wardrobe contained a hidden passage to Narnia._ I have since moved beyond such childish frivolities_, decided Rei as she stared thoughtfully into the mirror, examining the Carmen Miranda hat and placing it atop her head. _Perhaps today would be appropriate for such attire._

The day on which she was to wear her fruit-hat must be absolutely perfect, neither too hot nor too cold. She opened the window, determined to ask the construction worker outside if it was too humid.

"Is the humidity today conducive to the wearing of fruit hats?" Rei asked the man on the adjacent building, raising her voice so that he might hear her adequately. The man did not look up from his drill; sweat stood out on his forehead, and his body shook from the machine's vibrations. Taking the man's silence as indicative of a response in the negative, Rei placed the hat back in its familiar place on the top shelf of her wardrobe and turned with a crestfallen frown.

_Someday I shall proudly display my fruit-hat before my coevals_, Rei reassured herself.

* * *

Morning preparations were also underway in another apartment elsewhere in Tokyo-3, where one Asuka Langley Soryu sat at the kitchen table picking at the eggs and sausages her roommate had prepared for breakfast while absorbing herself in the latest issue of _GameWang_ magazine, idly flipping through pages to avoid any attempts at conversation. She was still irritated with stupid Shinji over the sandwich incident at school several days earlier, and quite frankly didn't want to hear about it. Shinji attempted to make eye contact with her from time to time, but she was careful to ignore it. He was sitting next to her, still wearing his white apron, which she had to admit looked kind of cute. _Idiot._

A two-page spread in the magazine caught her eye. Brushing her red bangs out of her line of vision, she gawked at an image of a twelve-year-old boy hurtling through space while wearing goggles and holding the controller of a game console. He was grinning like he had never experienced such ecstasy in his life, and beams of light were shooting out from all around him; apparently the console made you a space deity or something! Wow! She_ had _to get one of these, even though her genius intuition told her that it was probably false advertising.

Having decided she had eaten enough, Asuka picked up the magazine from her lap and set it on the table next to her plate before standing up wordlessly and running off to go brush her teeth.

Shinji followed her lead, standing up as well to take care of the dishes. As he reached over to pick up her plate, though, he noticed the colorful advertisement. _Super Megason IV_? He had never heard of Super Megasons I through III, truth be told, but he had never paid much attention to game consoles and supposed that it must be an established brand if there were four of them already.

Shinji shrugged and took his and Asuka's dishes over to the sink, pouring out the remaining bits of food into the garbage and then squirting out a bit of soap from the dispenser, beginning to scrub while holding one of the plates under running water.

"Hey! I wasn't done eating yet!" Asuka called out from behind him.

Without turning around, Shinji sighed and immediately began apologizing profusely, his scrubbing motions over the plate becoming progressively less and less emphatic as he spoke, before giving up and setting it down in the sink to deal with later as he tried to explain that, really, he thought she had finished already and that that's why she had gotten up-

"Anyway," she interrupted, "Forget it. I'm all ready to leave. You'd better hurry up and finish getting ready so I'm not late! What's taking you so long?"

He bashfully turned to face her. "S-sorry. I was looking at your magazine; what's that Super Megason thing?"

"Uhm..nothing! It's stupid!" Asuka hastily defended as she contorted her face and quickly looked away, all too aware that her face was most probably matching the color of her hair. "Just some game console. I don't care about that junk; it's kids' stuff!"

"Huh?" Shinji scratched his head. _Wasn't she just ogling it a minute ago, though?_ "But it looks kind of cool..."

Asuka shot him a sideways glance, her eyes still narrowed in suspicion as she slowly turned to face him again. "Y-you..really think so?"

"Well yeah...I guess," Shinji replied, looking at the floor and shuffling his feet.

Asuka glanced back over at the Megason spread. "Well, here, it's all yours." She picked the magazine up, tossing it over to Shinji, who flinched ever so slightly before quickly regaining his composure and skimming across the large, blocky text that had been presented to him, noticing something about a contest.

"Huh...apparently they're giving them away?" He looked up at her for a second as if expecting validation, but she just rolled her eyes, so he continued reading. "According to this, they've got a contest going on where if anyone can answer a bunch of questions and complete some tasks, they'll give one to them."

"Just shut up and get ready, jerkface. Last time you made me late, the teacher kept me after class and rambled about Second Impact for fifteen minutes." Asuka continued to look away from her roommate, her face feeling hot.

Shinji stammered out an apology and tossed the magazine back on the table, quickly untying his apron and throwing it into the laundry hamper as he hurried to his room to get his socks and backpack. The half-washed plates remained in the sink, covered in soap suds.

Asuka stepped over to the table where the magazine had been carelessly left, looking back over the contest guidelines for herself. _Answering some stupid quiz questions? Pfft, I could do that in my sleep._

She heard Shinji calling from down the hall and quickly grabbed her backpack, stuffing the magazine into it and slinging it over her shoulder before scrambling to the front door while shouting after him. "Oh, sure, _now_ you're in a hurry!" The last thing she wanted this morning was to be the cause of her and Shinji's lateness after having just gotten done berating him about it.

* * *

On their way out, a loud slam of the door jostled their sleeping guardian into the beginnings of a hungover lucidity. Misato Katsuragi blinked drowsily at her clock, rolled over, and considered going back to sleep. Shinji had already tried waking her up before breakfast, but she hadn't been in any state of mind to take that suggestion. She had things to do today, though, and she was already running late.

Groaning audibly as she sat up in her futon, Misato brushed a mess of purple strands out from in front of her eyes, squinting from sunlight that had leaked into the room through the venetian blinds. She pulled a shirt down over her head and figured that she could probably still make it to Nerv on time, or close enough to it.

But first she was going to head over to the kitchen for a beer.

* * *

Rei Ayanami was walking to school.

She sighed; once again she had opted against the unique combination of elegance and pragmatic functionality provided by the fruit-hat and its accompanying dress. With her in their stead was her backpack, which weighed heavily on her shoulders. She could see her breath assuming a visible form in front of her in the cold morning air, as she continued on her usual route.

School was the place where she was supposed to learn things. It was distinct from both trouts and bicycles, but was in some ways comparable to broom closets, which had confused her in the past. Mostly it was the place where she stared out the window and thought of Commander Ikari.

Rei heard a loud, feminine voice, and turned her head to see Second grumbling at Ikari-kun. They were dressed in their school attire and walking behind her several feet away to her right, their rapid footfalls hitting the sidewalk almost in unison. Second and Ikari-kun worked at Nerv. That was the place Rei Ayanami worked as well. Ikari-kun made her feel warm and fuzzy; she did not know why. Second, on the other hand, made her feel like the time her hand had been caught in the garbage disposal and Dr. Akagi had needed to give her a new finger.

Second was gesticulating wildly with her hands and talking excitedly to Ikari-kun, who was looking away from her, his shoulders hunched; she was gritting her teeth and pressing her face so closely to his that she was in danger of gouging out Ikari-kun's eye with her nose. Rei did not hear the whole of the conversation, but it seemed to involve the word "pastrami" and the future state of Ikari-kun's testicles should he ever mention it again.

Shinji glanced in Rei's direction and waved enthusiastically at her as Asuka sputtered to a halt.

"Hi, Ayanami!"

Ikari-kun sometimes said things to her. This was most perplexing, as for years she had spoken primarily to the Nerv staff and a potted plant which she referred to as "Steve."

"Greetings, Ikari-kun," she replied. She had recently ascertained that one was expected to reply to a salutation when directly addressed.

Asuka stepped forwards to put herself between Shinji and Rei. "Look, Wondergirl; it's great and all of you to come by and talk, but Third and I were kind of in the middle of something here. We've got some important business to work out here, so if you'd kindly-"

"What..sort of business?"

Shinji and Asuka both blushed at that, Shinji suddenly finding the appearance of the sidewalk very interesting and Asuka managing to eventually blurt out a response.

"W-well, we were, uh..the..the contest! It's for the new Super Megason, and _I'm_ going to win one!"

"Mega...son? This concept has been absent from all of my genealogy reading."

"It's a console, Rei. You play games with it. You do know what those are, right?"

The blue-haired girl stopped short. "I.."

"Forget it! Come on, Shinji." Asuka got a devious gleam in her eye and grabbed the boy's arm, pulling him along. "You and I are going to talk about _video games._"

Shinji responded with a slight tilt of his head. "But I thought we were talking about pas-"

"I told you not to mention that!"

"O..okay, sorry...you're entering that contest, then..? Can I help?"

"Help? As if I would need help from someone like you. It's just a bunch of quiz questions; it'd probably all be way over your head anyway. I guess you can play too, though, if it'll make you feel better."

* * *

Rei Ayanami was jolted out of her musings on the nature of peanut butter when she realized that Ikari-kun and Second were no longer in sight; furthermore, she was standing on the same square of sidewalk that she had been standing on fifteen minutes previously. Although she rather doubted the existence of linear time, she did not wish to be reprimanded for lateness and decided to proceed as quickly as possible.

As she trotted along the pavement, her foot protection units clicking rhythmically against the hard surface, it occurred to Rei that she was not quite certain where the school was located. Her mnemonic functions were often impaired for several days after her recent memories had been uploaded onto the Dummy System.

Wrinkling her forehead, Rei finally recollected her usual route involved traveling along Josei Street for about a mile, before turning onto Mishima Avenue. But what guarantee did she have that Josei Street would always lead to the school? It had always done so in the past, but that was no assurance that it would continue to do so in the future. In all probability, it would lead to a completely different building today. After all, it had no incentive to remain always in the same location. She decided to go down Tokugawa Street instead.

* * *

Misato sped along the road, narrowly squeezing past a school bus at ninety miles an hour. _I'm gonna be late! _The Commander would probably bust her down to private if she was lucky. If she wasn't lucky, well, she had heard rumors of the Subcommander's proclivity for making his personal secretaries wear French maid outfits. Stomping on the gas pedal with all her might, Misato weaved in and out of the left lane and ignored the angry honks directed at her. Since Nerv broke the laws of God on a daily basis, she figured she could be forgiven for breaking the laws of traffic.

As Misato tossed an empty beer can out of her open window, she noticed two blue mops crossing the road at an intersection. Misato squinted through her alcoholic haze until she had forced the mops to congeal into the familiar form of Rei Ayanami...too late. She was jolted forward in her seat and saw a backpack go flying though the air. _Oh God. I killed the Commander's autistic underage concubine. Ritsuko will never let me hear the end of it._

_Well, the only thing for it is to keep driving and hope that there's no witnesses._

She fidgeted nervously with her sunglasses and looked into the rear view mirror. _Wait, is that...yes!_ Rei was alive, lying on her back next to the sidewalk and rubbing her forehead. A few feet from her was a very flat squirrel. _Well, Rei's fine, right? Yep, no need to stop._ Misato sped forward, bobbed into the left lane, and flipped on the radio with a relieved sigh.

* * *

The bell rang shrilly as Asuka half-dragged Shinji along the school corridor, both of them them sweating as they sprinted along.

Asuka stopped abruptly at the sound, nearly knocking Shinji off his feet. "Jeez, not again! We ran all this way for nothing. This is all your fault, _Third_. I told you to get ready!"

Shinji looked at her in frightened bewilderment. He was never sure which of her tantrums were meant in earnest; it was safest to assume that they all were.

"_Me_? You're the one who wanted to stop at the Slushy stand!"

"It's comfort food, dorkwad. Geniuses are entitled to their quirks," said Asuka, winking and brushing back a strand of hair from her forehead, eliciting an audible groan from Shinji. "Anyway, if Nebukawa keeps me after class, I'm setting up your cello and Mrs. Garbage Disposal for a blind date!"

Still retaining possession of Shinji's arm, Asuka tugged him into class with a high-pitched "Hmph!"

Nebukawa was completely absorbed in his lecture about the bloody, post-Second Impact North Korean Turtle War and did not look up when they arrived. The other students were openly chatting with each other, listening to their iPods, or playing handheld video games. It was evidently not one of the teacher's rare lucid days.

"And the conflict came to an abrupt and shocking conclusion when David Bowie wrestled the emperor of the sea turtles for possession of the One Ring, which brings us to World War II."

Class Representative Hikari Horaki briefly let down her typical authoritarian air to wave at Asuka, who returned the gesture and greeted her, while Shinji was greeted by a sleeping Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara.

Asuka took her usual seat across from Shinji, and snapped open her laptop. Humming cheerfully to herself, she loaded up the GameWang website and registered for the contest, instant-messaging Shinji with the sign-up URL.

Here, idiot. Try to keep up, alright? :P

_It's just a stupid game. Why does everything have to be a competition?_

Because it's fun. Shut up :P

The two exchanged a glance of anticipation for a few moments before the first quiz question appeared in both their inboxes.

Oh, that one's too easy...I should have known they'd dumb it down so any dork could play.

_..the answer's "a house," right?_

Asuka turned to Shinji exasperatedly. "Don't you know _anything _about competition? If I just told you all the answers, it'd-"

"The next one's 'Boris Batanov,' I think."

Growling, Asuka turned back to her computer, sinking a bit in her seat at the realization that the correct answer was, in fact, Boris Batanov.

"Hey Hikari, you remember anything Nebukawa taught us about great white sharks?"

"Aren't those extinct?"

"Y-yeah, it's..do you remember how many fingers he said they had?"

Hikari considered this for a moment before confidently informing Asuka that great white sharks, in fact, had six fingers, prior to their extinction fifteen years ago.

* * *

Shinji, meanwhile, wasn't faring much better. "Kensuke, wake up! What was the last thing Carrot Top said before he died? Help!"

"Huh?" Rubbing his eyes, Kensuke tried to filter through bits of lessons long forgotten. "What'd you need something like that for? I can't remember, maybe Toji knows." The bespectacled boy lightly jostled the tracksuit-wearing jock sleeping at the desk in front of him, who awoke with a start.

"What? No, Class Rep, I didn't do i-"

"Earth to Toji! Come in, Toji. It's me, Kensuke! Shinji wants to draw on your surprisingly broad knowledge of 1990s pop-culture abortions! I don't know...you tell him, Shinji."

Toji crossed his arms defensively, tightening his face. "Shut up! I only know about all those Hanson albums 'cause of my kid sister!"

"N-no, Toji, it's..I just needed to know, uhm.. do you remember anything about what Carrot Top said before he died? It's for a contest."

Reaching his arm back around his head and looking up slightly in thought, Toji considered this for a moment. "'I've wasted my life,' wasn't it?"

Shinji hastily entered the answer on his laptop, validated by the now-familiar 'ding' signifying a correct response. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he read the following question, turning briefly to Asuka who regarded him with a similar expression before they each turned back to their respective computers.

Somewhere in the midst of this, Toji had somehow crept up behind Shinji to read the riddle from his laptop display. "It's 'shawl,' right? The answer has got to be a shawl."

Hearing the suggestion, Shinji and Asuka both frantically typed every variant of it they could think of into the answer box, turning to glare at each other as they typed, each becoming increasingly frustrated with every 'bzzt' of a wrong answer before suddenly their eyes widened and the solution became clear as day.

Two 'ding's sounded in near-unison before Shinji and Asuka read through the following challenge and realized that they would need to leave the school premises to complete it.

Two hands shot up in unison. "Teacher, I've got to go to the bathroom!"

Glaring at each other for a moment before eventually realizing that their teacher was completely deaf to their plea and would also, in all likelihood, not even notice their absence, Shinji and Asuka closed their laptops, stood up from their seats, and rushed out the door.

"Hey, where you going? It was a shawl, right?" Toji made his way back to his desk, dejected. "Now I'll probably never find out.."

* * *

Dusting herself off and picking up her backpack, Rei continued her trek, finding herself in an increasingly depopulated section of town consisting primarily of clapboard shacks with the windows boarded up. Urban areas such as these were colloquially known as "Nervilles," for reasons which she did not fully comprehend; perhaps it was related to the Commander's personal museum of ice sculptures, which the Secretary General of the UN had been none too pleased to learn about.

The shacks became increasingly sparse and eventually disappeared altogether, and the sidewalk gave way to a dirt road. The dirt road eventually led up to a rocky cliff face, from which there was a drop of eighty feet or so.

Rei could not remember if this was what a "school" looked like or not. The syllables humans had assigned to various objects were completely arbitrary, and thus very onerous to remember. For this reason, the Commander had helped her to compile a handy guidebook which was meant to tie together signifiers and their referents; he had found this necessary after she had confused the words "trout" and "bicycle," which had caused many embarrassing difficulties. For every important word, the guidebook contained a crude pictogram indicating which real-world object was meant.

She removed the guidebook from her backpack and searched for the entry for "school," bypassing the pictogram for "Ikari-kun," which was a stick figure with pencil lines on its cheeks to indicate a blush, and the pictogram for "Second," which was a long-haired stick figure with eyebrows knit angrily together over pointed fangs.

At last she arrived at the entry for "school," but was unable to distinguish it from the cliff face before her. She looked from cliff to guidebook, guidebook to cliff, but could not resolve her dilemma.

She remained in this position for several hours.

* * *

"What do you _mean_ you're not open for business on Fridays?"

At the entrance gate of the newly-erected Museum of Pre-Impact Life, a lone guard shook his head stoically. "It's great that you kids are so gung-ho to _Witness The Wonders Of Yesterday_, but you'll have to come back on Monday," he sighed, unenthusiastically reciting the slogan engraved on a large plaque above the entryway. "They're setting up a new exhibit on guinea pigs, _Terrors Of The Deep_; it'll be worth the wait."

Shinji opened his mouth to attempt a diplomatic solution. "We're not here for that, really-"

"We don't care about the stupid guinea pigs, we have to get in _today_! It's for a contest! We're Nerv employees, doesn't that mean anything anymore?" Asuka persisted, attempting unsuccessfully to push her way past the man, who just stood in place, looking at her apologetically.

"Really, I'd love to be able to make an exception for you kids, but this is out of my hands-"

"Fine! C'mon, idiot; it's obvious we're not wanted around here." Asuka nudged Shinji along as he followed her wordlessly down the sidewalk, taking in the sights of the overblown promotional banners hanging all around them and idly wondering how anyone managed to survive before Second Impact.

Sitting on a bench and looking at him with conviction, Asuka announced, "Alright, Third. I don't like you, and you don't like me-"

"Huh? I like you."

"Y- you what?" Asuka blushed, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "That's not important right now, stop interrupting me!"

"Sorry."

"What I'm saying is, if we're going to win this game, we'll have to put aside our differences and work together. This is obviously just a test of our dedication and ingenuity."

Shinji shrugged, taking a seat next to her and taking his phone from his pocket to dial their guardian. "Maybe Misato could help us get in?"

"Yeah, maybe. I mean, if she just had to flash her badge to get you and the other two stooges allowed on board the _Over the Rainbow_, this should be nothing, right?"

Shinji shook his head and closed his phone, pocketing it. "She's not picking up."

"It's just like her to leave us on our own at a time like this," Asuka bemoaned, biting her lip. "I guess I'll just have to do everything myself, like always. Sit still and I'll think of a plan."

Shinji groaned again. He did a great deal of groaning when he was with Asuka.

After a moment of frowning and humming to herself, Asuka jumped to her feet and stood in front of Shinji, balancing one foot on the bench beside him. He tried not to look at her breasts, which were level with his eyes.

"What if we disguise ourselves as time travelers from before Second Impact? They'll be sure to let us into the exhibit_ then_."

Shinji blinked. "Time..travelers? Wouldn't it be easier if we went in as janitors or something?"

"Idiot! All we need to make this convincing are some bowler hats and handlebar mustaches from the costume shop. C'mon!" said Asuka, grabbing Shinji by the hand and pulling him across the street to Crazy Steve's Party Outlet.

* * *

Asuka sighed, peeling off her handlebar mustache and stomping it into the pavement. The guard had almost let them in before he had remembered that bowler hats hadn't been invented until 2005.

"We should've gone as janitors," Asuka muttered.

Shinji sighed. "So now what do we do?"

"We could try sneaking in through the air vents, I guess. It usually works in the movies."

The two began to idly wonder if they had, in fact, come to the right part of town, but suppressed their doubts and circled the museum exterior together, looking for a ventilation shaft of a sufficient size. As Shinji stepped over a fallen banner depicting a squirrel menacing two pre-Second Impact women in corsets, he heard Asuka emit a happy-sounding squeak.

"Hey stupid! I think I found a clue!" she said, holding up a yellow post-it note and grinning broadly.

Shinji glanced over her shoulder. "From the Megason contest?"

"What else, dummy?" she rhetorically asked, squinting at the kanji. "I..think it says something about fish sticks?"

Shinji chuckled a little, drawing a death glare from Asuka. "No, Asuka. It says_ 'If you want to find the next note/check the garbage chute'_."

Asuka wrinkled her nose. "Is that supposed to rhyme? That's pretty stupid."

She pulled Shinji behind the building to the dumpster, which was stamped with a red Nerv logo. Shinji peeled another sticky note off the side and read the doggerel verse scrawled on it in kanji, appearing to have been written in a hurry.

"_'You have only just begun/to find the Super Megason! The entrance that you seek/is on the bench facing the street!' _I'm not reading the rest of this, it's just giggling and smiley faces."

"It's on the... damn it, we were just there a second ago! What the hell?" Asuka tugged Shinji back in the direction of the bench, both of them panting.

Upon reaching the bench, the two of them stared in shocked silence at what had seemingly been left for them. On top of the bench, where they had been sitting only a few minutes earlier, were what appeared to be six canisters of nitroglycerin. Attached to one canister was a sticky note with a smiley face scribbled on it in red crayon.

"Is that...?" Shinji stammered out after a few moments, his eyes wide. "Are we supposed to..?"

Asuka exchanged a nervous glance with him, attempting to maintain her confidence.

"Y-you idiot, of.. of course they wouldn't _really_ have us blow up a public building with nitroglycerin. It's..this is obviously..just another part of the contest," she finally managed, acutely aware that neither herself nor Shinji were entirely convinced.

"..I mean...I _guess_ it looks as official as anything else we've found today." Shinji tilted his head to the side slightly. "And they wouldn't give us real explosives...would they? If this is just another part of the game, I..guess we shouldn't stop now."

Shinji stared numbly as Asuka picked up three canisters and cradled them in her arms.

"After we've come this far? Y-you're right..it's, this couldn't be for real. This is all just a big game," Asuka chuckled nervously. "These things are _supposed_ to look real; it's..it's obviously just how they keep the amateurs out! C'mon, dorkface, help me carry these to the museum!" she commanded.

Shinji nodded shakily and obeyed without another word, grabbing the remaining three canisters and suppressing his misgivings as the two anxiously began their brief trek back to the Museum of Pre-Impact Life.

* * *

At Nerv, Misato swung lazily back and forth on her swivel chair, grinning vacantly. On the way to work, she had managed to get drunk enough to temporarily suppress her hangover.

A few feet away, Ritsuko was scowling at her over her coffee mug, droning on about something that seemed to involve the words "urgent" and "Third Impact," but the surrounding phrases seemed blurry and meaningless.

Misato glanced idly at the TV screen attached to the ceiling, ignoring Ritsuko. The news was on. Twisting and turning in her chair, she read through the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. Pope condemns sentient diet soda... Experts question existence of Finland... Kamikaze submarines devastate Tel Aviv... Explosion in Hakone region...

_Explosion in Hakone region?_

Misato's eyes widened as she stared at the screen, the display changing to an overhead map view, followed by a live feed of a familiar-looking area. _Isn't that where the kids go to school?_

"Damn it!"

Ritsuko walked away with a shrug and a sigh as Misato yanked her cell phone out of her purse, mashing buttons and hastily dialing Asuka's number. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to her kids, and besides, Ritsuko had bet her ten thousand yen that Shinji wouldn't survive under her charge for a year, and she'd be damned if she was going to pay up.

Misato held the receiver to her ear before immediately pulling it away a few inches upon hearing Asuka's shrill whine.

"AaaAAAaah! Stupid Shinji blew up a building, Misato!"

* * *

"I can't even put into words how disappointed I am in both of you. What on earth were you two _thinking_?"

Misato looked incredulously at her two charges from across her cluttered desk. The pilots had been picked up by a Section 2 escort and transported to Nerv headquarters. Rei had been called for as well, as part of Nerv's attempt to secure their human assets in the aftermath of the incident downtown, but was thus far conspicuously absent.

"What do you mean 'us two'? I told you, Shinji did it!"

"Asuka..."

"Right, sorry. Um.." The redhead turned to Misato, attempting to determine how to best explain what happened in a way that wouldn't make her any more angry. Failing that, she turned to Shinji, her face taking on the same expectant stare as their purple-haired guardian.

Sighing, Shinji reluctantly began his testimony. "We..honestly didn't mean for this to happen, Misato."

"How could you have not known? Shinji, Asuka..do you have any idea how much money this is going to cost Nerv?"

Shinji looked at the floor uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, Misato. We thought it was just..part of a game."

"A game? You're lucky no one was killed! We're supposed to be keeping this city safe, not..terrorizing it!"

Asuka snorted at Misato's accusation. "It's a _promotional_ game, Misato! The idiot and I have been working hard to support Tokyo-3's bustling industry. This is only a minor setback! Right, Third?"

* * *

As Rei stared in consternation across the face of the cliff, she felt her cellphone vibrate in her backpack. She knelt down and pulled out the vibrating black box, wondering who the caller might be. It was not yet time for the Commander to remind her to take her anti-leprosy medication.

"Greetings."

"Rei?" A female voice answered her.

"Yes."

"There's been a bombing downtown. All pilots are to report to headquarters for their own protection."

Rei frowned. _The Commander is not a woman._

"Identify yourself."

"Huh? This is Lt. Maya Ibuki, Rei. You know me..."

Rei paused for a moment, thinking. "Yes. You are the younger Dr. Akagi. I recall your existence."

The female voice laughed nervously. "Uh...yeah. So you'll come to headquarters on your own, right? Or do I need to come pick you up?"

"Affirmative," said Rei, hanging up the phone.

Rei stared over the cliff face thoughtfully, resting her hand on her chin.

She had no fear for her own safety, as she could be replaced, but Ikari-kun...Ikari-kun was different. Before she had met Ikari-kun, her insides had felt like straw; she had tried to fill up the empty spaces left by the straw by thinking of the Commander. Ikari-kun had made her feel less empty. He had made her smile and given her soup on one occasion. Her insides now felt like something of slightly greater density, packing peanuts perhaps. If Ikari-kun were to die, she would feel like straw once more, and there would be no more soup. This was not desirable. _I must find Ikari-kun._

Clenching her jaw tightly, Rei slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked away from the precipice.

* * *

Asuka's phone interrupted the ongoing brow-beating, chirping happily from her pocket. She pulled it out, reading a text message that had been sent from an unfamiliar number.

"Asuka! Are you even listening to me?" Misato reached across her desk, snatching the phone out of Asuka's hands. Scowling at its display, her eyes widened as she took in the contents of the text message.

_Your pyrotechnics display cracked the museum open like an egg.  
What's big, looks like a marshmallow, and has lots of legs?_

"Give it back, Misato! We need it for the contest!" Grumbling, she turned to her roommate. "Shinji, can you think of anything that looks like a marshmallow and has lots of legs?"

Shinji looked at her, shrugging. "Uhm.. Aoba, maybe?"

* * *

Rei walked through the shopping district, her eyes darting through the crowd. Occasionally she would stop to ask a passer-by if they were Ikari-kun, as one could never be entirely sure. Half an hour ago she had thought she had found him, but her guidebook had identified the object before her as a "fire hydrant." She wondered absently why a device which releases fire would be located on such a busy street.

Rei felt a slight stab of pain as a short stocky man with glasses elbowed her aside. _That was very rude. Perhaps he is a friend of Second._ Rubbing her arm, she turned her head to see a storefront which immediately caught her attention, a shop identified by bold red letters as Piazzo Breads and Bakery. She had once seen Ikari-kun inside that very establishment, so it was logical to assume that he would be there now.

She opened the glass door, hearing the clatter of a bell above her as she entered the building. She disliked bells. They were useless.

A bewildering array of sights, sounds, and smells greeted her. Salarymen in business suits sipped unidentifiable green liquid; a young freckled man in a white apron and puffy hat mumbled at customers; and a variety strangely appealing circular objects beckoned to her from behind a glass case near the cash register. She squinted at the objects and found one of them strangely familiar. Could this be Ikari-kun? She consulted the appropriate guidebook entry.


	2. Mr Lobster's Adventure, Part 2

"Shinji, Asuka, listen to me! I- I think there's something more than meets the eye with this contest.. Nerv could be in danger, and you two are not helping! For all we know, this could all be a plot against you and Rei- and call Rei! She still isn't here!"

Misato jumped up from her desk and shoved both Shinji and Asuka out of the room as Asuka whined indignantly. Slamming the door shut, she sank onto her swivel chair, an earnest expression on her face.

_This is bad._ Apparently whoever was behind the contest knew about Adam, and worse yet, she couldn't tell the higher-ups because she herself wasn't supposed to know about Adam in the first place. _Should I call Kaji? No, I probably shouldn't be seen around him at work anymore._ Things got uncomfortable once the Commander had found out about Kaji's second job. Besides, he was probably just waiting for the first excuse to sleep with her again. _That asshole_.

The only thing she could do now was find out who left the text message on Asuka's phone, call them up, and do some investigation of her own. If worst came to worst, she figured, maybe she could offer them a bribe; she already used the children's Nerv salaries to buy booze every week, anyway. She picked up Asuka's cell phone off her desk and scrolled through the caller ID to redial the appropriate number, putting the receiver to her ear anxiously.

A gruff voice with an Chinese accent greeted her at the other end of the line.

"Eh?" After a moment, the man bumbled out "What may I hope you?" in broken Japanese.

"Who are you, and who are you working with?" Misato demanded.

"This Huang, from Mintendo Corp! What your problem is, lady?"

"How much do you know about Nerv?" asked Misato, attempting to make her voice sound as authoritative as possible.

"Nerf? You mean giant robot people everyone hate? Very scary robot!" Misato heard a flapping noise on the line, but could not see the man thousands of miles away flail his arms in pantomime.

"What do you know about the Angels?" she said, almost shouting by now.

"Angels? Lady, we make video games where Mario head backwards and hamster wheels that no more work after week. I no see Angels here."

Misato groaned in frustration. "Six minutes ago you sent a text message to one of my pilots about something big with 'lots of legs'. Don't try to play dumb, sir."

"That? That no mean anything. It part of contest. Centipede have lot of leg too, yes? I no time to talk have. Capos cut off thumb if I no sell consoles. Very bad."

Misato opened her mouth to talk, but was cut off by a click on the line as the man hung up. She briefly reconsidered bringing Kaji or perhaps even Hyuga in on the situation, but thought better of it. She was already on thin ice, and didn't need this false alarm to reveal her knowledge of Nerv's secrets. This was nothing but a harmless contest run by the Chinese mafia, she reassured herself.

With that crisis averted, there was only the matter of how to deal with the kids and the aftermath of the mess they made downtown. Misato stood up from her desk and poked her head out the door, spotting Shinji and Asuka in the middle of one of their trademark arguments.

"It said 'lots of legs'! Not two of them, dummy!"

"Okay, so if the answer's not the Michelin Man, what _is_ it? I'm tired of fighting about this, Asuka; why can't we just try that if you don't have any better ideas?"

Misato cleared her throat, causing the kids to jolt forward a little and bump into each other. "You two will have to finish your lovers' quarrel later," she said, smirking. "I'm not finished yelling at you."

Ignoring their groans and protests, Misato ushered them back into her office. She turned her back on them in order to seem more gruff and intimidating, a tactic she'd learned from the Commander. This parenting stuff was really pretty easy.

As they reluctantly followed her to their seats, Shinji and Asuka both noticed something unusual on the back of Misato's jacket, glancing at each other for a moment before Asuka removed the yellow post-it note to get a closer look. _It looks like the other ones from the contest, even down to the stupid rhyming phrases, but..how'd it even get here?_

"Misato, you've got a-" Shinji spoke up, interrupting her thoughts.

"Shh! Shinji, let's go!"

Asuka dragged Shinji through the door by his shirt collar, as Misato shouted after them before sighing and slumping back into her seat. _Fine then_, she thought._ I'll take care of this public relations nightmare sooner rather than later, and I can punish them afterward. They can't possibly make more of a mess, can they?_

* * *

"Ugh, what a dump. You sure this is the right spot?"

Shinji looked around the apparently abandoned field, unfolding the small sheet of paper from his pocket as he and his redheaded companion approached what appeared to be an old toolshed, and began reading off the clue that had been printed on it. "Well, let me see, uhm.. '_True, blue, dribble, dreven; pick up this pay-phone at a quarter to_-"

"Shut up and let me see that!" Asuka scowled as she ripped the page out of his hands, stopping in her tracks to take a closer look at it. Narrowing her eyes in concentration, the girl pushed a few buttons on her cell phone, which chirped along happily as she checked their GPS coordinates before deciding that they were, in fact, in the right place. "Yep, this is the spot alrigh- Wait, be quiet for a second.." She turned her attention to a man's voice nearby.

It sounded familiar. Suave and mysterious, and adorned with a certain resignation—perhaps even a sadness—that seemed somehow out of place from what she had come to expect in it.

"..truth is with you; don't hesitate. If I can see you again, I will say the words that I could not say eight years ago..."

Turning the corner around the shed, Asuka gasped audibly as she saw the long-haired 30-year-old standing inside an open phone booth, a phone held to his ear. The man's eyes widened as he looked back at the girl, for a moment allowing his eyes to show an absolute horror he knew she could never understand, before attempting to brace himself for the inevitable running leap into his arms.

"Kaaaji!"

The pay phone dropped from his hand, suspended inches above the ground by its cord, as Ryoji Kaji flinched from the sudden contact. This was the last place he expected anyone to find him. Not now..not like this. This phone message would almost certainly be his last; how could he face the girl who had looked up to him as a guardian? The girl who he knew he was leaving behind?

She looked up at him pleadingly. "Kaji, we've got to use this phone! It's for the Super Megason!"

As Shinji approached, having watched the scene from afar, Kaji set Asuka gently back down and attempted to put on a casual mask, stepping outside the booth to greet them. "H-hey kids...the super-who? What are you two doing out in an old place like this?"

"We, uh..we didn't exactly expect to run into you here, either, Kaji.. Asuka and I wer-"

"We're..um, we're playing a game! I'm winning, of cours-"

"What? Asuka, I th..I thought we were working together now-"

Kaji held out his palms, in hopes of slowing them down for for an actual, coherent explanation. "Kids, kids, wait..what are you actually doing here?"

Asuka fished around in her pocket for the paper containing the clue, unfolding it and holding it out for the ponytailed man to read. "We're expecting a phone call, Kaji...see?"

Kaji squinted at the poorly-written rhyme. "You're really doing this, Asuka? It seems kind of childish, don't you think? '_True, blue, dribbl_-"

"Fff- jus..just forget about the stupid note," she groaned, stuffing the page back into her pocket. "They could be calling us any second! We might already be too late, even! We need to use the phone! Pleeease, Kaji?"

Kaji pulled the phone up by its cord and set it back on the hook, sighing in resignation before he gestured to the phone booth, stepping away from its door. "Alright, alright. It's all yours."

Taking the cue, Asuka stepped into the tiny phone booth and was followed closely by Shinji, who shortly became the recipient of a few choice words regarding the propriety of the location of several of his limbs and even, in one case, an internal organ. The phone rang just as the boy finished contorting himself into what Kaji figured must have been an incredibly uncomfortable position, and Asuka put the receiver to her ear while Shinji attempted to listen in.

After a few moments of quiet crackling, a deep, electronically-altered voice came over the line, enunciating its words slowly and intently as though the speaker was attempting to communicate through a bucket of molasses.

"_You have come far, but there are many more stops... Your next clue lies at Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe._ Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, distributor of the official cheese-filled snack of Nascar. All rights reserved. This has been an automated call performed by GameWang Magazine on behalf of The Super Megason Corporation. The Super Megason Corporation is not associated with Hormel Foods, the Standard Oil Trust, Major League Baseball, or the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Fun to play with, not to eat. Game pieces do not actually talk. Ask a parent before-"

Asuka clicked off the receiver and dropped the phone to the ground, shoving Shinji out of the doorway as she turned to Kaji, stepping out of the booth. "Well, that settles it! Shinji and I are going for ice cream."

"You two going for a date?" Kaji smirked, raising an eyebrow, eliciting a squeak and a blush from the girl.

"N-no, of course we're not!" she hastily denied, forcing a laugh, "Like I'd ever go on a date with that idiot...even if he is kind of c- You know, Kaji, why don't you come along?"

The man shook his head sadly, trying to put on a smile for Asuka's sake. "I'm sorry, I couldn't possibly.. I've got important things I need to be attending to."

Mustering up her best pouty face, Asuka continued, "Come on, Kaji! It'll be great, you can do that stuff some other time... I mean, I uh..I need someone strong like you around to keep Shinji from trying to rape me!"

"You needing protection from him? Really, Asuka? That doesn't sound like the strong, self-sufficient girl I know at all!"

"I'd sooner attempt raping an electrical socket," Shinji quietly offered.

"You wha- wait a..." Shaking her head, she continued her cries of protest. "Come on, please, Kaji? We haven't gotten to spend nearly enough time together recently..."

Kaji sighed, realizing that in all likelihood there was no way he would be getting out of this. "...fine, I'll tag along if it'll keep you kids from killing each other."

* * *

"Lousy kids these days, with their i-Pods and Gamerstations and their...becoming God," Subcommander Kozo Fuyutsuki muttered to himself as the imposing Seele monoliths vanished from their positions around him with a metallic thud. The room he was in was cold and drafty, and the hard metal folding chair he was seated on hurt his posterior. Having rarely sat down since becoming Ikari's Subcommander, he had forgotten just how uncomfortable a poorly-manufactured chair could be.

Fuyutsuki wasn't worried...well, not a great deal, anyhow. After all, Ikari surely would not let his second-in-command disappear without a trace. Agent Kaji was probably on his way now. Then again, the Commander might not have have noticed his absence as of yet; Pilot Soryu had been living in Japan for six months, yet the Commander still referred to her as "the red one."

* * *

Shinji shook his head at his redheaded roommate. She had welded herself to Kaji's side, skipping and singing a song to the effect that she was with Kaji-san. _She can be really childish sometimes__for a girl with an IQ of 250_, Shinji mused.

Kaji ignored the loss of circulation in his right arm as Asuka clung to his side, pulling him along the sidewalk in the direction of Ted's Ice Cream Shoppe. A thought tickled in the back of his mind that there was someplace important he was supposed to be, but he couldn't quite recall what it was. _It must be the stress getting to me._

The ponytailed man was jolted out of his thoughts by a squeal from Asuka. "We're here, Kaaaaji-saan! This is the ice cream shop!" Kaji turned to see a white storefront covered by a red and white striped awning. A large mechanical ice cream cone spun in front of the door; it was guarded on either side by two plastic candy canes standing sentry.

Kaji smirked at Asuka's enthusiasm. "Well, I hope you and Shinji-kun find what you're looking for."

"We still don't know what we're actually supposed to be looking for in here," Shinji noted.

"Huh? Shinji?" Asuka turned her head, loosening her grip on Kaji's forearm. "Oh, hey dorkface. Forgot you were there," she giggled.

Shinji rolled his eyes a little. "Thanks, Asuka."

"Oh, come on, Third." Asuka looked through the display window into the store interior, consisting of a circular ordering counter in the center of the room with several plastic cushioned red booths lining the walls around it. "It's not that big of a place; this should be an easy one."

Asuka tugged him into the ice cream shop while still remaining fused to Kaji's side, causing Shinji to stumble a little and grip a candy cane for support.

"C'mon, Third, help me scout the terrain," Asuka said, finally plying herself free from Kaji and shooting him a final, longing look.

Kaji pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, lighting it with a secret button located on his wristwatch and drawing yet another admiring squeak from Asuka. "I wouldn't mind buying you kids ice cream, you know, even though it looks like Katsuragi's been feeding you enough," he said, nodding at Shinji's stomach and winking, earning a confused look from the boy.

"Well, we should be _looking _for clues, but...ooh, ooh, I want the Swirly-Blasted Chocolate Cookieruption!" Asuka said, looking at the menu and grinning widely.

"Um...I guess I'll just have regular vanilla," Shinji mumbled uncertainly.

"Such a boring little boy," Asuka said, sticking out her tongue.

Shinji groaned. "Fine, I'll get the, uh..what's the one with..you know, the one with the dragon tattoo."

Asuka tilted her head sideways. "Shinji, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kaji gave Asuka a condescending pat on the head and got in line to order their ice cream while Asuka and Shinji sat down at a booth by the window. "Okay, Third, we need a game plan," she said, tenting her fingers as a determined grin spread across her face. "You should do a dance or something to distract the cashier while I check the ice cream machines for clues."

"What? I'm not doing that. Besides, we don't even know where the clue_ is_."

"Yeah, I know. I was just seeing if I could actually get you to do it," she giggled, playfully poking the tip of Shinji's nose with a plastic spoon taken from the table.

Kaji found their booth a minute later and sat down next to Shinji, handing the children their respective ice cream choices, a plain vanilla cone for Shinji and a bowl of ice cream for Asuka that resembled a violent industrial accident at a firework factory. Asuka eagerly began engulfing the mounds of sprinkles and golfball-sized chunks of cookie dough, while Shinji licked his cone demurely. Kaji took a drag on his cigarette and considered reciting a cynical-yet-cool aphorism, but then thought better of it.

Lifting another spoonful of sprinkles into her mouth, Asuka looked up to see Shinji widen his eyes and emit a pained rasping, heaving noise from across the table.

"Can't...breathe," Shinji choked out, dropping his ice cream cone onto the table. Kaji immediately pulled Shinji from his seat into a standing postion, put his arms around Shinji's stomach and pushed until a hard, round, phlegm-covered object flew from Shinji's mouth onto the table.

Asuka curled her lip. "That's revolting, Third."

Shinji slid back into the booth, holding his chest and panting heavily, nodding as Kaji asked him if he was alright. Asuka glanced briefly in Shinji's direction before renewing her commitment to her gigantic sundae.

Glancing across the table and narrowing his eyes at the metallic pog Shinji had choked on, Kaji considered the possibility of an attempt on the pilots' lives before looking more closely and recognizing that there appeared to be some sort of text printed on it, recalling the contest the children had mentioned. _These prizes are really getting absurd._

Wiping the object down with a napkin, Kaji picked it up and read aloud, "_Your quest continues after this delicious treat; the following clue awaits at the corner of Third and Tokugawa Street. _This what you were looking for, kids?"

Asuka's face lit up. "It's the clue! Great job, Third!" she exclaimed, smiling.

Shinji blushed. "Well, I mean...I didn't really...er...never mind." It was nice to get approval from Asuka for once, even if it was for nearly choking to death on a pog.

Asuka finished her bowl a short while later, and the group exited the ice cream shop.

Standing with them on the sidewalk in front of the shop, Kaji smiled at the two. _It's good to see them getting out and being able to act like kids for once._ "I should get home and let you two go on your way," he said, much to Asuka's protests. "Try not to make too much trouble," he grinned, as he turned to leave.

"Kaji-san's so cute!" chirped Asuka, once the older man was out of earshot. "Why can't he see that Misato's all wrong for him?" she sighed, before bringing her attention back to the task at hand and nudging Shinji along in the direction of the Tokugawa-Third intersection.

* * *

Fuyutsuki squinted through his blindfold, but could make nothing out except a dim yellow light emanating from above. He thought he could smell baked dough..perhaps marinara sauce, but of course Seele had drugged him several hours earlier and his senses were unreliable. He scratched his chin in frustration. In the old days when he was always surrounded by a posse of unkempt graduate students, this could never have happened. Wait..._had he just scratched his chin?_ Fuyutsuki suddenly realized that his hands were not tied, and furthermore, there was nothing holding him to the chair. He stood up and tore off his blindfold with a contemptuous grumble about the declining quality of cult membership. Fuyutsuki took a moment to straighten his collar and adjust his shirt sleeves; as Nerv's Subcommander, he was obligated to keep up appearances.

Glancing at his surroundings, the Subcommander saw stacks of cardboard boxes, a row of metal folding-chairs atop a push-cart, and a short man with a Roman nose holding a pepperoni pizza the size of his head.

"Herr Lorenz, I presume?" said Fuyutsuki in an even tone. After teaching biology for decades, living through Second Impact, and sending adolescents in fetish gear to fight aliens shaped like clocks and dildos, not much fazed the Subcommander anymore; still, there was a hint of fear in his voice that embarrassed him. "You look shorter than I remember. Did you always wear a chef's hat?" A horrifying thought struck Fuyutsuki: _Was this Seele's infamous human-pizza fusion laboratory?_ He had hoped and prayed that it was only an urban legend.

Fuyutsuki frowned upon realizing that there had been no reply from Seele's Chairman. Come to think of it, he didn't seem to breathing, either. He poked Lorenz gently with his forefinger, narrowing his eyes as the German Chairman fell backwards and hit the floor with a hollow sound. Kneeling, Fuyutsuki saw that the man he had been talking to was a cardboard cutout with the words "Luigi's Pizza" emblazoned on his chest, and did not greatly resemble Herr Lorenz, either.

Unable to make sense of this new data, Fuyutsuki staggered to the door, clutching his forehead and trying to ignore his splitting headache. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Peering through the doorway, he saw only a halo of white light, his eyes reeling from the contrast to the darkness within the storeroom. Fuyutsuki heard a rough, gravelly voice calling to him from the other side and stopped in his tracks, his blood turning to icicles in his veins. Seele had caught him after all.

"Stop right there! Where do you think _you're _going?" the voice snarled.

"Ah! I was just..um..."

"Where are you going without trying _Luigi's Delicious Pizza_?"

His eyes having finally adjusted to the fluorescent lights, the Subcommander saw that he was standing in the middle of a perfectly ordinary pizza parlor. The man addressing him with the voice of a hardened serial killer was a store mascot wearing a plush pepperoni costume. All around him, scantily-clad teenagers were chatting at booths or playing on one of the ancient arcade machines that lined the wall. _Damn youngsters..._

"I said, where are you going without trying Luigi's Delicious Pizza, _sir_?" the mascot continued to growl.

"Oh! I uh...I'll take a whole pie to go, please," said Fuyutsuki, not quite unconvinced that the man was a Seele agent. _After all, they must use this place as a front..._

The pepperoni man slipped behind the cash register and handed Kozo a pizza box made semitransparent with grease. Unwilling to tempt fate any further, Kozo pulled out all the money in his wallet, plunked it down on the counter, and sprinted to the door, still cradling the pizza box.

Outside, Fuyutsuki ran until he was clear of the restaurant, not daring to look back. He found himself in a dirty, smoke-colored alley between two garbage bins and stopped to catch his breath, clutching his chest with one hand and balancing the pizza box in the other. He was far, far too old for this.

Just when his lungs had ceased to burn, Kozo heard a voice like sandpaper coming from the other side of the alley. He turned his head and saw the pepperoni mascot, half-concealed in shadows from an adjoining apartment high rise and flanked by two men wearing black suits and dark sunglasses.

"Sir, you forgot your change," said the pepperoni man, chuckling hoarsely. The two men in black cracked their knuckles and pumped their fists.

Kozo sighed wearily; it was probably time to think about retirement.


	3. Mr Lobster's Adventure, Part 3

On Third Street, Rei Ayanami wandered down the sidewalk accompanied by Ikari-kun who she carried in her hand, as he had been somehow determined as unfit to walk. She did not recall his being as small, circular, or stationary as he was, but she found him to be pleasant company nonetheless.

A ways behind her, Shinji squinted at the blue-haired girl in school uniform visible down the street. "Hey, is that Ayanami?"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Third. She's _your_ girlfriend, you tell me."

"Sh-she's not! I'm serious, Asuka!" Shinji shouted indignantly. "It's just weird that she's alone this late, talking to herself," he clarified.

"Probably still thinks she's too high and mighty to talk to anyone else," Asuka grumbled.

Rei stopped and turned to look behind her, having overheard the boy's shouts. She could not quite place the memory associated with the sound, but she discerned it as a meaningful one. Looking at the pair with a strange sense of familiarity, she began walking in their direction as they continued towards her. _I believe these people are important. I should introduce them to Ikari-kun._

As Shinji and Asuka closed the distance to Rei and Ikari-kun, they could begin to make out what she was saying. This only raised further questions.

"And that is when I discovered my clothes were attached to my body," the blue-haired girl revealed to her cream cheese-filled traveling companion.

Shinji glanced nervously from Rei to Asuka, who merely grumbled and shook her head in disbelief.

"H-hi Ayanami.. What's, um..what brings you out here?" Shinji stuttered out, still struggling to comprehend the scene before him, and with so many questions he could barely figure out where to even begin asking.

Asuka rolled her eyes and poked her finger at Rei's chest accusingly. "Nerv was looking for you today, you know. Why didn't you show up?"

Narrowing her eyes, Rei took a moment to process this. "I have now been located?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Asuka grabbed Shinji's arm and tried to tug him away. "Forget it, she's obviously too busy to deal with common peons like us."

"Wait," Rei commanded. "Ikari-kun."

Shinji blinked, looking expectantly at her.

"I work alongside these people at Nerv," Rei intoned, looking directly at the object in her hand as though anticipating a response. After a moment she sighed, withering slightly. "You are not pleased to meet them, Ikari-kun?"

Asuka groaned, palming her face. "First? That's a bagel."

"You're supposed to eat it," Shinji assisted.

Rei looked at them, then back to Ikari-kun, taking in the surprising revelation. Cautiously, she placed her lips around the item in her hand and took a small bite. Wide-eyed, she beheld the bagel with a new reverence.

"You are _delicious_, Ikari-kun."

Asuka huffed and dragged Shinji away, suspending his continued attempts to explain, as Rei continued on her way, munching contentedly on Ikari-kun.

"Did you teach her to say that, Third?" She glared at Shinji, cutting off his stammered reply to inform him that she had never known such a shameless pervert in her entire life.

* * *

Upon reaching the corner of Third and Tokugawa, Asuka and Shinji looked around in perplexity. There was nothing there of note, with the exception of a sky blue mailbox with a Nerv logo on the front.

"So, this is it. I don't see anything here. What do we do now?" said Shinji, turning his head towards Asuka.

"Idiot! You always give up so easily! The clue is obviously inside this mailbox," Asuka replied, pointing a finger at the box and smiling with satisfaction at her detective skills.

Shinji peered down the mailbox's hatch, squinting. "Um...I don't really see much of anything, Asuka."

"Well, _obviously_ it wouldn't be so easy as just looking into the mailbox, jeez! They have to keep the amateurs out _somehow_!"

Shinji looked unconvinced, soliciting a grumble from Asuka.

"C'mon, climb in there and dig for it," she directed, "I'll hold your ankles."

He glanced at the mailbox and winced. He couldn't possibly fit inside there unless Asuka cut his legs off first. _Knowing her, she might actually try it. There's got to be some other way._ "Well, um...I don't think that's very realistic, Asuka..."

"Quit your whining, Third," said Asuka, pulling her mouth into a pout. "You've got no guts for a guy, jeez!"

"Hey, I found the clue!" said Shinji, waving a sticky note. "It was right there on the back of the box."

"Hmph, that was too easy! What's this contest coming to? Read me the kanji, jerkface."

Shinji stared for a moment at the childlike scrawl written on the slip of paper and widened his eyes in disbelief once he had managed to extract a meaning. "Well um...it says um..."

Looking over his shoulder at the note in his hand, Asuka's eyes widened in a combination of fear and determination. "We have to do it. We've come too far to stop now."

Shinji gulped. "Asuka? No. No way. We are _not_ digging up the Tokyo-3 Cemetery."

* * *

"I can't _believe_ we just dug up the entire Tokyo-3 Cemetery."

"And there's not even anything here!" Asuka threw her shovel in the air in frustration, narrowly missing Shinji's head with the working end of it.

Through the silhouetted outlines of trees, the beginnings of a sunrise could be seen. The horizon loomed yellow and red, matching the color of Shinji's eyes at the moment.

"I can't believe we did this," he moaned. "'Just one more, Third,' you said. 'Just dig up one more and we can get out of here.' Now it's morning and I still haven't slept."

"God, I'm so sick of listening to you complain! And don't give up so easily. It's probably inside one of these coffins." Asuka was leaning against a dead tree, her arms folded.

Shinji sighed in exasperation and looked at the ground. Freshly unearthed coffins littered the cemetery like benches at a public park. "Haven't we done enough already, Asuka?"

Asuka grinned mischievously and laid her hand jauntily on her hip. "What, are you scared? You're such a scaredy cat, Third," she said, sticking out her tongue.

"I am not! H-hey, what're you doing-"

Shinji froze in shock as a cheerfully smiling Asuka kicked the lid off a coffin, revealing a half-rotted corpse wearing the shredded remains of a tuxedo. Most of the flesh had fallen off the face; a worm crawled out of the eye socket. Asuka, humming an upbeat tune, tore off the body's maggot-ridden arm and waved it at Shinji.

"Oooh, look Shinji, it's coooming foooor you!" Asuka taunted, giggling.

"St-stop that!" said Shinji, gagging and shielding his face.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "God, you're no fun, stupid Shinji."

"Come on, Asuka! The sun's coming up; if we don't get out of here someone's going to see us!"

Asuka looked up at the sky, sighed, and tossed the severed arm casually over her shoulder, breaking it in two. _Dammit, he's right. If someone catches us here, Misato will be the least of our problems._ "Fine..just gimme that note. I want to look at it again before we go; maybe we missed a hint or something."

Shinji begrudgingly removed the post-it note from his pocket, his eyes widening in horror as he read it. Rereading it in his mind, trying to surmise every possible explanation for what he was looking at, a terrible realization slowly dawned on him.

"A..A-Asuka..? I don't..think we should have done this.."

"What now?" Asuka rolled her eyes. "I told you to quit complaining, it's too late to undo anything now."

Shifting the note around in his hands to confirm his suspicions, he swallowed audibly before answering. "W..we read the note upside down. It actually says the next clue is..in Misato's refrigerator."

"Whaaaaat?" Asuka's face contorted into an expression Shinji had previously thought to be a physical impossibility.

""Yeah, I know." Shinji chuckled nervously, trying to ignore the stench of rot that became more evident with each passing moment. "It's kind of..oddly specific."

"Damn it!" Asuka shouted, stomping on the ground before grabbing Shinji's hand and pulling him along to Misato's apartment.

* * *

Subcommander Kozo Fuyutski knelt in front of the employee entrance to Nerv and dropped the pizza box, completely and utterly exhausted. He had lost the men in black and the pizza mascot a few blocks back, but he knew that they would not be gone for long. His uniform was torn in numerous places, as dirty as the First Child's apartment, and his stamina was completely shattered. Oddly enough, the Oven-Fresh technology had held up as well as advertised and the pizza box was still in prime condition, its contents warm.

Coughing and wheezing, the Subcommander staggered to his feet and dug out his ID card after a brief search through his pockets. He slid it into the electronic card scanner, but neither the turnstile nor the blue metal doors would budge an inch, causing Fuyutsuki to frown in consternation. As he slammed his fist against the ticket box in vain, he heard a loudspeaker crackle to life and the Commander's voice began to speak.

"Attention all Nerv personnel. Due to the inconven- the tragic demise of Subcommander Fuyutsuki, Derek Croft is hereby appointed interim Subcommander." Commander Ikari stopped speaking, and another voice whispered indistinctly to him. The Commander continued, "He wishes it to be known that employees may refer to him as 'DJ.' That is all."

Fuytsuki gritted his teeth. _I haven't even been gone for a day and that bastard's already replaced me. God damn it._

As Kozo was mentally consigning the Commander to various circles of hell, he heard a now-familiar gravelly voice.

"Hey sir, have you tried one of Luigi's scrumptious cannolis? They make a great dessert for the whole family."

Fuyutsuki frantically swiped his card over and over, knowing that death was imminent-and felt a hand on his shoulder accompanied by an amiable chuckle.

Ryoji Kaji smiled broadly at the elderly subcommander's futile attempts at entry into the base. "These ID cards aren't worth the plastic they're printed on, are they?" he chuckled as he gently nudged Fuyutski's hand aside and cheerily slid his own card through the reader, opening the doors. "Yours is probably just worn out from so much use."

Fuyutski looked at Kaji, his face blank. After a few silent moments of uncomfortable staring, the older man managed a small "thank you" and gestured to the pizza box on the ground nearby before making his way into the base.

Eyeing a dejected-looking pepperoni mascot with contempt, Ryoji Kaji bent to pick up the pizza box. _An unusual place for the Subcommander to leave this, but I can't complain. It'll be good for lunch later today._

Kaji slid his card through the scanner again but stopped short before entering the base himself, thinking about Fuyutski's disheveled appearance and suddenly recalling the mission he had forgotten in the midst of the childrens' unexpected interruption the previous evening. _Oh God. The phone message. Misato!_

He turned from the entrance and took off in a sprint, pizza box still in hand, hoping he wasn't already too late.


	4. Mr Lobster's Adventure, Part 4

Shinji and Asuka sprinted up to the door of Misato's apartment, panting and clutching their sides. Asuka tried the knob; it was unlocked, and she pulled Shinji by the hand to the kitchen, bumping into Pen-Pen on the way. Inside, an agitated Misato stood with her hands on her hips.

"Where the hell have you two been all night?"

"No-nowhere, Misato," Shinji stuttered out, looking away.

"We definitely didn't dig up any graves," Asuka added helpfully.

Misato eyed the pair seriously, then her expression changed to something neither of the children could quite read. "You...two were at a love hotel, weren't you?"

Asuka's screams were audible throughout the entire housing complex.

"Oh God. Please, at least tell me you used protection."

"NO! I'd rather have sex with Pen-Pen than stupid, lame, _idiot_ Shinji!" she finally sputtered out. Shinji looked away, keeping his eyes trained on Pen-Pen, who warked indignantly before retiring to his cooler.

Misato stared at her distrustfully. "If you didn't use protection, you'd better tell me now...I mean, Ritsuko _does_ do late-term abortions, but still..."

Red-faced, Asuka glared at her alcoholic commanding officer. "Misato, this isn't funny. The idiot and I would never do something like that! Isn't that right, Third?"

Shinji swallowed his intended response, instead only managing to mumble out "W..well, I m-mean, uh.."

Asuka gave Shinji a look that promised death by various ornate medieval methods.

"I mean...no, of course not, never. I hate Asuka," sighed Shinji as his roommate nodded happily.

Misato blinked twice at this display before collapsing back into her chair, laughing. "Sorry, kids. For a second there I really thought you two had done something irreversible last night."

Shinji and Asuka looked at each other in mild disbelief.

"You two really should wash up, you know. You look like you've been rolling around in the dirt."

"But Misato, we don't have _time_ for stupid ordinary things like bathing! Not _now!_ We're here for the next clue, and we know it's in your fridge!" Asuka said.

Misato sipped her beer with disinterest. "You're still on that contest thing? How much longer is this thing supposed to go on, anyway?"

"However long it takes!" Asuka declared. Holding up the post-it note proudly, she continued, "This here says the next clue is inside your refrigerator! Open it up, Shinji!"

Shinji did as told, as Misato shook her head in disbelief at her charges. Shinji and Asuka looked wide-eyed into the refrigerator, scanning it for any sign of a clue, anything that seemed off from the last time they had looked at it.

"Misato, did you notice anything weird in the fridge last night?" demanded Asuka.

"Nothing really, just-"

Shinji cut in, still looking closely at the fridge contents. "Wait, Misato...didn't there used to be a cake in here? Way in the back of the lower shelf?"

Misato's rancid, rock-hard graduation cake had been a permanent fixture of the Katsuragi household for the entire duration of Shinji's stay. He figured that Misato was around thirty; assuming that she graduated at the normal time, that would make the cake about eight years old, at the very least. The cake had probably been white at one point in the past; now it was a dull gray, and the little graduation hat on top made of frosting sagged morosely, waiting in vain for someone to end its misery.

Misato blinked. "Huh? You mean my graduation cake? Yeah, I finally threw it out, since Asuka was always complaining about it. I noticed one of you had started writing something about rhinoceroses in the frosting; I figured it was time."

"Writing? And y..you...threw it out." Asuka looked up from the fridge after making a frantic search. "You threw it out. You idiot! That must've been the clue!"

"There's just no pleasing some people," yawned Misato, reaching over Asuka's shoulder and extracting another beer from the fridge.

Asuka pulled open the trash can and stared down into it, about ready to rip her hair out after finding it almost entirely empty. "It's not in here either!"

"I took the trash out this morning," Misato said. "You might still be able to catch it before it gets picked up, though, if you really miss it that much."

"C'mon, Shinji, we're going dumpster diving," said Asuka resolutely.

Shinji groaned. "Do we have to?" he stammered, before having his hand grabbed by Asuka for the umpteenth time that day.

Asuka raced down the staircase, with Shinji flailing behind her like the streamers on a float. Panting heavily, they skidded around the corner just in time to see the dumpster's contents emptied out into the garbage truck.

Collapsing to the ground and breathing with difficulty, Asuka panted out a swear; it involved "God" and the act of reproduction in places Shinji had never heard them to be before.

Shinji leaned on a nearby wall for support, his whole body shaking. "W-we could..maybe we could still go after it."

Asuka shook her head in resignation. "No," she panted, "This is...we can't do this anymore. It's not worth it. Not for this."

* * *

Rei slipped on her school uniform and idly counted the dust motes swirling in the morning sunlight. So many motes were alike; so many were useless. As she navigated her way into a sock, she noticed a yellow stick note on her bedpost and surmised that the Commander had probably left it as a reminder to bathe. She peeled the note off the wall and stared at the childish scrawl written on it, frowning.

The note congratulated Ikari-kun and Second on having come thus far, and mentioned that an item called a "Mega Son". She vaguely recalled Second having mentioned this object the previous day and wondered if it was related to an ultra son, a concept she was more familiar with. Realizing that the Commander would not approve of such idle thoughts, she tossed the sticky note onto her wastepaper receptacle, which others insisted on calling the "floor."

Grabbing her backpack, Rei stepped out into the hallway and made her way out into the street, dodging the beer cans and needles that littered the complex. She walked along her typical route to school, determining that Josei Street had probably returned to its usual location by then.

Rei noticed a trail of small, white, puffy objects in her path. She had heard Ikari-kun and others refer to these objects as "popped corn." Commander Ikari had once read her a story in which such a trail led to a house made of candy; her studies had shown that this was apparently a desirable outcome. She decided to follow the trail, wherever it may lead.

* * *

"Hi kids." Misato shrugged, having received no enthusiastic response to her greeting as Shinji and Asuka dragged themselves to their respective rooms to pass out. "Bye kids."

Resting her chin on her arms and glancing over a beer can, Misato for the first time noticed the slow blink of the answering machine's message light. She picked herself up from her seat and walked over to the cabinet the machine was placed on, glancing at the number on its small display. _Probably a telemarketer_, she figured, or another of the irate Tokyo-3 citizens whose concerns about Nerv had been kindly forwarded to her by the Commander or Dr. Akagi. She pressed the playback button, and a small speaker clicked on with a tinny reproduction of a familiar voice.

"Katsuragi, it's me. I've probably put you through a lot of trouble by the time you're listening to this..."

The voice sounded pained. Misato's eyes widened. _No.. He wouldn't..._

"..I'm sorry. Tell Ritsuko I'm sorry too. Since I've troubled you so much anyway, could I ask you for one more favor? There's this flower I've been growing... please ask Shinji to water it for me. He'll know where it is..."

Shakily, Misato collapsed to her knees in front of the cabinet. She didn't care or notice as the apartment door opened behind her.

"..the truth is with you; don't hesitate. If I can see you again, I will say the words that I could not say eight years ago..."

"You idiot...you goddamned idiot," Misato cried, her shoulders heaving.

"Hey, Katsuragi!"

Misato jolted around to see Ryoji Kaji standing in the doorway, setting a box of Luigi's Delicious Pizza on the kitchen table. "Sorry I'm late. I got here as fast as I could."

Wide-eyed and with disbelief, she stood and made her way across the kitchen, collapsing into him and continuing to sob heavily as he put his arms around her.

"Pizza?"

* * *

The popcorn trail led into a dilapidated tenement building that smelled similarly to the inside of an LCL tank, and finally to a room numbered one hundred and fifteen. A dead cat lay in front of the door, and unamused-looking teenagers in leather jackets slouched against the far end of the wall. Through the walls, she could vaguely make out the muffled sounds of gruff voices speaking in dialects unfamiliar to her.

Rei Ayanami recognized the scene before her as a familiar one from books she had read on the dangers of human trafficking. Determining that she could be replaced if need be, she weighted the potential benefits and decided to knock on the door.

A man wearing a cheap suit and dark shades greeted her at the door, his lips downturned into a scowl. "What's da codeword?" he whispered, leaning in so closely that Rei could nearly taste his breath.

_Codeword?_ Rei wondered, and briefly considered answering "popped corn" before noticing a stack of boxes inside the room, visible over the man's shoulder. She could only make out the largest text on them from the distance. _This is the Mega Son?_

"You are interested in the Mega Son, as well?" Rei suggested, hoping to establish a common bond with the keeper of the room's contents.

The greasy man shrugged irritably. "Are you dat Eva pilot girl who won da contest, or ain't ya?"

"I pilot Eva."

"Whatever. Just take it and leave."

The man roughly shoved one of the boxes into Rei's hands. Rei stared wide-eyed at him in bewilderment.

"How does one make use of a Mega Son?" she asked. "I have never desired children."

"What? You play games on it. Now get outta here before I sell your kidney," the man said, baring his teeth.

Although Rei knew her kidney was disposable, she determined that remaining with the man would not be a recommended course of action. Taking the box, Rei nodded and walked off without a word, returning to her apartment with it. She sat on her bed and opened the box, peering inside at its contents. Rei reached in and removed a small pamphlet; it was a set of instructions written in Esperanto, a language which she was fortunately quite fluent in after two years of intensive self-study.

Carefully following the written instructions to connect the Super Megason game console to the television set that had been given to her as a gift, the blue-haired girl took the flimsily-manufactured controller into her hands and pressed the power button, sitting on the floor and leaning against the edge of her bed, next to the half-eaten remains of Ikari-kun.

The screen read "600,000 in 1." Rei was skeptical that upwards of a half million games existed to begin with, let alone within the very machine she now possessed, but her curiosity was mildly piqued nonetheless by the prospect of such.

Scrolling through the list, Rei sampled several of the games, furrowing her brow in perplexity. She noted one particular game in which a plumber jumped on and crushed anthropomorphic mushrooms if the player pressed the appropriate buttons; Rei wondered what these gentle creatures had done to deserve such a cruel fate. There were several thousand iterations of this game, of which the only noticeable differences appeared to be the color scheme; although she found them all similarly puzzling, she found the magenta version to be far more enjoyable and edifying than the one which was turquoise.

Rei checked the manual for more moving picture entertainments. There was a game which required the use of a plastic gun located within the box, which she quickly extracted and attached to the television set. A pixelated duck appeared, and she pulled the trigger as was expected of her, watching as the duck collapsed.

Verifiably, the duck had been killed dead. Now made acutely aware of the world-altering power held within her hands, Rei cautiously pointed the controller at the cabinet next to her television and depressed the trigger button, but it appeared to have no effect. Rei frowned. This game had no real-world application, and therefore would likely not be approved of by the Commander. She laid the gun aside in disappointment.

"Ikari-kun, perhaps you would like to play?"

Rei stared at the bagel in anticipation, but it showed no response.

"I suppose not, then," she sighed after a moment, turning off the television and beginning to pack the Megason and its related parts back into its box. "Maybe Shinji would enjoy it."

* * *

After waking up, Asuka narrowly avoided an awkward encounter with Kaji while sneaking into the bathroom to wash off any remaining signs of the previous night's misadventure, before joining him and Misato in the kitchen for lunch.

Munching happily on a slice of pepperoni pizza, Asuka noticed her roommate exit his room and approach.

"You've still got dirt and guts or something on you, dorkface," she said, gesturing casually to point out the affected areas and laughing as he ran off to the shower.

"Guts?" said Kaji, smirking and raising an eyebrow. "What've you been doing to poor Shinji-kun?"

Misato shook her head, groaning. "You don't want to know. At this point, neither do I, even."

Asuka made a face. "You two always mollycoddle that pervert!" she said, trying not to imagine Shinji's nude form in the shower.

As the three were talking, laughing, and munching their pizza, the doorbell rang. Misato sprang to her feet and opened the door, feeling more amiable than ever now that her blood-alcohol level was nearing the threshold of lethality.

"Salutations," said Rei, carrying a large cardboard box.

"Hey there, Rei," said Misato, grinning. "What's up?" Misato ruffled Rei's hair playfully, causing Rei to blink in confusion. Kaji and Asuka strolled to the door, Asuka frowning slightly.

"Is Ikari-kun present?" said Rei. "I wish to speak to him."

"Hey Third, your girlfriend's here!" Asuka shouted irritably in the direction of the bathroom.

As if on cue, Shinji walked out of the bathroom in casual clothes, his hair still damp. "She's not my-hi Ayanami," he said with a blush, causing Asuka to roll her eyes.

"Ikari-kun, do you enjoy moving picture entertainments?" asked Rei, visibly uneasy at the prospect of being with so many people.

_Moving picture entertainments? Does she mean that TV I gave her?_ "I.. sure, what..um.." He leaned in and whispered to Asuka uncertainly, "Do I like those?"

Asuka just narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "How should I know? She's probably trying to hit on you."

Sighing, Shinji informed Rei that, sure, he had always been a big fan of moving picture entertainments and was excitedly looking forward to their upcoming album.

Rei's face lit up, although her mouth remained as straight as always. "That is fortunate. I hope you enjoy this, Ikari-kun," she said, handing him the box.

Asuka frowned in the direction of the box. _It must be her dirty lingerie or something. They're both so shameless. Hmph!_

Able to read the lettering on the package for the first time, Shinji's eyes widened. "Wait, this is a.."

"First? How'd _you_ get a Megason?" Asuka demanded. "You dirty cheat! Third and I were trying all day yesterday to get one of these and you didn't even tell us?" _Probably got it on a special favor from Shinji's dad or something. He would._

Rei contemplated this. "I was given it in exchange for keeping my kidneys, I believe," she said. "After exhausting all entertainment possibilities of such games as _Snoopy's Puzzle Palace_, _Snopey's Puerile Pandas_, _Sloopy's Puddle Piazza_, and _Snorky's Plasticine Prongpod_, I have determined that you may take greater interest in it than I."

"Th..thanks, Ayanami." _Huh. That was unexpected._

"Well don't just stand there staring at it, Third! Hook it up to the TV!"

"Yes, Asuka," Shinji said as he turned to carry the Megason into the living room.

"I'm going to kick your ass six ways to Sunday at _Sloopy's Puddle Piazza_!"

* * *

Fuyutsuki walked into his office to see a young man with sunglasses and a crew cut sitting with his feet propped up on _his_ desk. The Commander had replaced him with someone who looked like he was barely out of high school. What disturbed Fuyutski most was that the boy had been given a chair, a privilege he himself had yet to earn in all his years working at Nerv.

"Hey mates!" the boy said into the intercom. "Subcommander DJ here. Tomorrow's silly hat day, so be sure to bring your beanies. 'Specially you, Maya my love. Ritsie-pie, too."

Fuyutsuki stared blankly at him, waving with his thumb in the direction of the door. "Get out of my office."

* * *

Shinji gripped the game controller, mashing buttons intently. "W-what? That's no fair, you didn't even hit me!"

"Then why are your _organs_ all over the floor, Shinji?" Asuka happily sing-songed.

"That's not what I meant," he grumbled, earning nothing in response but an eyeroll.

"You know, I wouldn't have expected it, but Sloopy's Puddle Piazza is a surprisingly violent place," Shinji observed a few minutes later as Asuka's character strangled his to death with his own severed tongue.

Asuka nodded, adding, "It seems remarkably similar to that other game we played."

"I don't think it's really a fair fight, anyway...half the buttons on my controller are drawn on in crayon."

Asuka scoffed, poking him in the belly. "Like you need buttons, dorkwad."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

Giggling, Asuka tackled Shinji to the floor, playfully punching him. "If you have to ask, you'll never find out!"

* * *

From the kitchen, Misato commented, "They're so cute when they're fighting."

Kaji raised an eyebrow. "Like us?"

Misato sipped her beer indignantly. "You wouldn't know cute if it bit you in the ass."

Kaji watched Shinji and Asuka enjoy their unconventionally-acquired prize. "There's probably a valuable lesson to be learned about teamwork and cooperation, somewhere in all this."

"'Don't get involved with the Chinese mafia'?" she suggested.

Kaji smirked at Misato. "That's kind of a punch-out moral, don't you think?"

"Whatever."

* * *

End of Episode 35: Mr. Lobster's Important Adventure. Next episode will have much more fanservice and answer all the mysteries of the Evangelion universe! Don't miss it!


	5. Attack of the M&Ms, Part 1

"Oomph!"

Shinji groaned audibly as the punch connected.

Kensuke winced, offering his condolences to the track-suited jock's victim of the day. "It's nothin' personal. He does this to all the new kids."

"This'll teach you to mess with my little nephew!"

"I didn't know you had a nephew! I swear!" wailed the sixth grader, clutching his stomach.

Toji narrowed his eyes, turning and leaving the boy sprawled on the pavement behind him as he walked back toward the main building, pumping his fist.

Shinji and Kensuke spared the boy a pained, apologetic glance before following after Toji.

"You've really got to quit doing that," Kensuke sighed, pushing up his glasses as they headed back to their desks. "Besides, nobody really believes that you've got that many relatives anyway."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Toji considered as he picked up his backpack off the floor to take home. "I guess it's just what I've always done; it'd feel weird to stop all of a sudden."

* * *

_NGE: The Cutting Room Floor_  
_Episode 36: Attack of the M&Ms_

* * *

Asuka had already left with Hikari, telling Shinji not to bother waiting up for her. She hadn't said much to him all day, but his best guess was that she was still agitated with him for...Shinji wasn't totally sure why, actually. _One of her usual Asuka reasons,_ he surmised. As such, his company on the way back to the apartment would instead be kept by Kensuke and Toji until their paths diverged to their separate homes.

Toji strutted ahead of the others as the three strolled together through downtown Tokyo-3. Kensuke was carrying a model airplane and making onomatopoeic gun noises to himself that made Shinji wince a little in embarrassment.

"Can you believe all the homework we got assigned?" Toji palmed his face in irritation. "It's like the old guy wanted to keep us busy for the next week so he could spend it talking about pre-Second Impact radishes."

Kensuke shrugged. "I'll probably end up doing it for ya anyway, so what do you care, Toji?"

"It's da principle of the thing," said Toji, grimacing.

Approaching his street, Shinji turned and waved goodbye as he headed back to Misato's apartment for the evening. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

"See ya, Ikari!" Toji shouted. "Don't let the red devil bugs bite!"

Shinji groaned inwardly but said nothing else as he left, not feeling like explaining to Toji that he was mixing metaphors again. He didn't really understand how Toji had somehow managed to extend what began as a slap and a flashing into a months-long vendetta, but he had long since stopped trying to rationalize the behavior of those around him.

* * *

"Damn it, Yoji, that turtle _thing_ blew up five blocks! The apartment next door is covered in purple alien gunk, and the supermarket's under martial law. We've got to get the hell out of here."

"But I just got a great fixed-rate mortgage!" Newly-wedded Yoji Agano threw up his hands in frustration. "If we can hold out long enough, all this nonsense will pass, and just think about our property value! We'll never have to work another day in our lives!"

"Yeah, since we'll be dead!" shouted Michiko, glaring at her husband from across the kitchen table.

"What's gotten into you, darling?" Yoji asked. "It's like you've become a completely different person since our honeymoon."

Michiko stood up in her seat, staring daggers through him. "Our _honeymoon?_ In case you've somehow _conveniently _forgotten, our honeymoon didn't include a grotesque parody of a Chinese New Year float killing everything outside our window!"

"R-relax, honey," said Yoji, smiling nervously. "Aliens are just a phase, like hovercars and gelatin. In a year or two they'll all be gone."

"You don't like my gelatin casserole?" shrieked Michiko. "Why the hell do I make it for you, then?"

"I- I, dear, I-" Yoji stammered, trying to find a complete word somewhere as he watched his wife pick her plate up off the table and shatter it on the floor, "That- that's not what I meant, darling! Put the- no, not the dishes, n-not again, ah-"

"It's _never_ what you mean!" Another dish shattered. "One of these days, Yoji, you're going to have to take responsibility for what you get yourself into!"

"But-"

Michiko smashed a set of expensive glasses to the floor. "We're living in a hellhole where we could die tomorrow and you tell me to hang on because it's a financial investment?"

"D-ear, don't you think you're over-reacting?" Yoji said, wincing. "Why don't you just set your Penfield mood organ to husband-knows-best, and we'll-"

"Here's what you can do with your goddamn mood organ!" Michiko narrowly missed Yoji's head with a plate.

Yoji ducked under the table as his wife began hurling whatever else was available to throw.

* * *

"You really think that's why they call 'em VCRs?" Toji Suzuhara looked curiously at Kensuke. "That's not what grandpa said."

"'Course it is, Toji! Sometimes I really wonder about your family," Kensuke said as they walked past a playground surrounded by a chain-link fence.

"Yeah, you were sayin' that before, too," Toji shrugged. "I guess I've just had a weird upbringin'."

Kensuke scratched his nose. "Well, that's one way of puttin' it- Toji, look out!"

Toji stopped in his tracks-and was hit square in the forehead by a round, blunt falling object.

"Toji!" Kensuke rushed over to where his friend lay supine on the pavement.

A dented coconut rolled away from Toji's head as he groaned feebly.

"You alright? We should get you to the hospital or somethin', that looked like it hit pretty hard!" Kensuke's eyes scanned the area trying to discern the origin of the projectile, but saw nothing but a line of apartment windows, many of them open. _It coulda been from any of them, I guess. Poor Toji._

Toji put his hand to his forehead, wincing. He looked up at the boy who knelt beside him. "Don' worry 'bout me, smallboy. Ah gotta hard noggin, it ain't break that easy."

"T..Toji? You're just messin' around, right?"

"I ain't messin' nothin'," Toji declared as he picked himself up from the sidewalk and dusted himself off. "Back when ah was a young'n, Pap used 'ta hit me wit' coconuts whenev'r ah done stealed from his 'tater patch."

Kensuke stared at him, eyes widening in horror.

"C'mon, smallboy, less' get you home."

* * *

"AaAaAAAh! You really haven't played Super Death Bastards?" Asuka asked in disbelief, plopping herself down onto Hikari's rug.

"N-no...that sounds pretty violent, Asuka...we do have Pony Patrol, though," Hikari replied meekly.

"Well, I guess it'll have to do." Asuka made herself comfortable, crossing her legs. "Do the ponies kick each other to death or something, at least?"

Her freckled friend chuckled nervously. "Um..I don't think they're supposed to, at least." Running one of her hands idly through her hair, she compromised, "I guess you could try..."

"Sheesh, your taste in video games is hopeless," said Asuka with a hmph. "I bet you don't like Goretron 4 either."

Hikari sighed. "We don't have to play video games if you don't want." She looked distant.

Asuka stared at her thoughtfully. "Don't tell me you're still thinking about how to win over dork-for-brains?"

"A-Asuka!" Hikari blushed furiously. "It's not-" She looked at her lap in embarrassment. "D..do you think he'd notice me if I brought him lunch?"

"Well, it's sappy and sentimental and girly, but I guess it could work," Asuka admitted, chewing a finger. "It's probably still too subtle for that thickheaded jock, though. I think he has astronaut ice cream where his cerebral cortex is supposed to go."

Hikari looked at the floor dejectedly. "Gosh, boys are so confusing," she said, in one of her more profane moments to date.

* * *

"This yaw house, smallboy. Ah tells ya, you 'kin tell a lot about a man by th' look'a 'is house, an' ah 'kin tell this one's yaw's."

Kensuke was more patient than most would give him credit for. Having followed the boy's seemingly aimless jaunt for the better part of an hour, he was mostly just worried about his friend. "Toji, I don't live anywhere near here. Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"Ah's feelin' mighty fine, smallboy; don'tcha worry abou' ol' me. Ain't that yo house o're yonder?"

"Toji, that's a potato chip factory," he said through a loud coughing fit, holding his glasses as he used his hand to fan away the smog from the smokestacks.

Squinting at the low sun, Toji inspected the building in question before breaking out into laughter. "They ain't make 'taters in smokey-shops. Them's where child'n come from," he explained, pointing at a window through which a man could be seen packing chip bags on an assembly line.

Kensuke sighed exasperatedly. _This isn't going anywhere good_, he thought. "C'mon, Toji. Let's get you to the hospital."

* * *

"What do you _mean_ he seems perfectly fine?"

The doctor shrugged, setting down a stack of papers on a nearby table. "It sounds like a normal Osaka accent to me."

Kensuke looked at him in disbelief. "But...b-but, what about.."

"Ah told yeh ah ain't got nothin' wrong up here," Toji assured him, pointing to his temple.

"Are you kidding me? Do you _hear_ him?"

The doctor smiled condescendingly. "The ways of the Osakans may seem quaint to us, but they have a rich cultural heritage of their own."

"C'mon, smallboy," Toji said, lightly nudging Kensuke out the door. "'S'gettin' awful late, we oughta get home befo'e them ghosties come on out."

Shinji walked into the classroom the next day to see Asuka already at her desk, playing with her Wonder Swan. She had stayed over the previous night at Hikari's place, he figured.

"Um, hey...what's up?" he asked bashfully.

Asuka looked up, glaring at him. "You still don't even know why I'm mad, do you? You're the worst, Third!"

Shinji flinched. "N-no, I _do_ know! It's um...er..uh..."

Asuka continued to glare at him, hiding her disappointment. _Damn it, he doesn't know why I'm supposed to be mad at him, either. It's way too embarrassing to just _ask_..._

The two glanced over at Toji expectantly. This was usually the point where he would say that they were fighting like a married couple, causing them to blush in unison, but today he just stared vacantly ahead, chewing on a piece of straw.

"Hey, what gives?" Asuka narrowed her eyes at Toji. "Aren't you going to harass me and stupid Shinji?"

The tracksuited jock looked at her innocently. "This 'un?" He paused for a moment to look at her for an answer, still chewing. "Ah reckon it wou'n't be proper ta' harass a dame like y'self-"

Kensuke shot up from his seat, hastily covered Toji's mouth with his hand, and chuckled nervously. "It looks like the class lovebirds are goin' at it again!" he said, taking up the slack from Toji, who continued to speak inaudibly through Kensuke's hand.

Shinji and Asuka blushed deeply, making their usual protestations that they despised each other and wished each other immediate bodily harm.

The bell rang for the start of class, and Kensuke sighed in relief as everyone returned to their seats when their teacher entered the room to begin the day's lessons.

* * *

When the bell rang for lunch, Kensuke pulled Shinji aside into a corner of the room.

"Listen, I don't know what's going on but somethin' happened to Toji yesterday!"

Shinji stared blankly at his bespectacled friend.

"Y-you saw he was actin' weird today, right?"

Shinji blinked. "I didn't really notice. What was I supposed to be looking for?"

Kensuke's face fell. "You didn't notice that he's acting like he's seriously brain-damaged, Ikari?" he said wearily.

"Uh... Maybe I'll just have to pay closer attention. He seemed pretty normal to me."

"You _really_ didn't see anything different? What about the stra-"

Asuka's smirking face suddenly appeared over Shinji's shoulder, prompting him and Kensuke both to jump. "The jock?" she inquired cheerfully. "He seems smarter, what'd you do to him?"

Kensuke found himself at a loss for words. _He seems _smarter_? Have I stepped into the Twilight Zone?_

"Well? Don't just stand there with your jaw hanging open!"

"I-it was a.. a coconut!" Kensuke flailed his arms around above his head in demonstrative pantomime as he spoke. "It fell from the sky and hit him in the head!"

Asuka narrowed her eyes condescendingly. "A coconut? From the _sky?_" She snorted. "Get real, penis breath. A _coconut_ descended from the heavens to bestow its blessings upon him."

"It's true! _You_ believe me, right, Ikari?" Kensuke turned to Shinji hopefully, but received only a tolerant smile and an indecisive murmur.

Asuka shrugged and returned to her seat by Hikari to finish her lunch. "Hey, maybe you and the jock have a chance after all," she whispered conspiratorially. "He's acting like he finally got a brain upgrade or something."

"Golly.." mouthed a blushing Hikari, her heart aflutter. _So, that's it, then. I'll bring him lunch tomorrow, and see what he does._

* * *

Major Misato Katsuragi sat beside Dr. Ritsuko Akagi at the bridge, the two of them sipping coffee from paper cups. Misato glanced up from her paperwork to see her friend reading a massive cloth-bound book.

"Wow, _War and Peace_? That's pretty heavy stuff," said Misato. "I didn't think you read anything that doesn't involve biology or cats."

Ritsuko's face reddened imperceptibly against her bleached blonde hair as she paged through issue 37 of _Hello Kitty's Adventures in Catnip Village_, which she had hidden between the pages of Tolstoy's novel in order to maintain a pretense of professionality.

"A scientist has to be well-rounded, you know," answered Ritsuko sententiously, adjusting her glasses. "I deal with human nature too, not just genetic engineering."

Misato tuned her out, sensing the head of Project E about to enter lecture mode. Having been best friends since college, the two women hated each other dearly.

"So," Misato interjected after a brief pause, "Have you decided who the pilot of Unit 03 is going to be yet?"

"The Marduk Report has narrowed it down to two candidates; we should get the final results back by this evening," said Ritsuko. "Which reminds me..." She rummaged around in the pockets of her lab coat, extracting a folded sheet of paper and handing it across the table to her companion. "Our public opinion polls came back today. It looks like most people think of us either as 'Space Nazis' or 'That Place That Kills Kids.'"

Misato palmed her face. "What happened to our cover story about manufacturing laptops? Doesn't _anyone _believe that anymore?"

Ritsuko sipped her coffee nonchalantly. "That whole charade has been impossible to keep up ever since the first Angel attack on the city. Nobody really thinks that the Angels are optical illusions caused by gas leaks, either."

"Huh."

"The public's trust in Nerv is at an all-time low. The Commander wants the Director of Public Relations to make a series of PSAs to boost our image," Ritsuko continued.

"We have a Director of Public Relations?" Misato asked, tilting her head quizzically.

"We do as of today. Congratulations!" Ritsuko turned towards Misato, a sadistic smile marking her features.

Misato laid her head on her desk, utterly broken. _'Avenge Second Impact,' they told me. I should've just taken that job with Sea World._


	6. Attack of the M&Ms, Part 2

"Before we end for the day, I'd like to remind you all of parent-teacher conferences coming up in the next few days," announced the teacher of Class 2-A. "Be sure to check the meeting schedule in the hall to make sure there are no time conflicts. Both you _and_ your parent will be expected to attend."

Shinji sulked at his desk after the final bell rang. _Of course Father won't come. Father never thinks about me except when he needs me for something._ He glanced over to Ayanami's desk, where she was staring vacantly out the window as usual, her hands covered in bandages although she had not even been injured recently, to the best of his knowledge. Maybe Ayanami would know what to do...she knew Father better than he did.

He walked over to her desk, trying to look as casual as possible. "Hi Ayanami," he said. Ayanami did not respond. Shinji cleared his throat, but she still did not look up. Growing desperate, he snapped his fingers in front of her face, which finally caused her to glance languidly in his direction.

"Salutations, Ikari-kun." She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "You are concerned about the Commander's role in the upcoming conferences?"

Shinji blinked. "H-how'd you know?" _Am I that transparent?_

"You spread your mayonnaise counter-clockwise today. You never do that, Ikari-kun."

Shinji continued to stare absently at her in confusion.

"I made an assumption because he is important to you."

"But..the mayonnaise? How did you.."

"I was speaking in jest."

"Oh.."

"I know you would not spread mayonnaise in such a way."

Shinji sighed. Sometimes he wondered if Ayanami was autistic, a time-traveling deity from another dimension, or just very eccentric. His inquiries usually settled on some combination thereof.

"So um...what do you think I should do?" he finally asked, blushing slightly.

"You should tell the Commander how you really feel, Ikari-kun. He cannot know that he is important to you unless you communicate this knowledge via phonemes."

_How he really felt about him? _But what did he feel? He could never decide what he wanted from Father. Still, she was probably right. He couldn't run away.

Shinji managed a smile. "Thanks, Ayanami."

"You are welcome."

Shinji started to walk away, but turned around before he had left the room, remembering something that he had intended to ask Ayanami but had not yet had the courage to.

Her red eyes met his. "What is it?"

"Um...I was thinking about the upcoming conferences and all, and was wondering," he said, fidgeting. "What are your parents like, Ayanami?"

She shook her head sadly. "You know that is level 7-C classified information, Ikari-kun. I cannot divulge it at this time."

"Oh...sorry." Unsatisfied with her answer but unwilling to press the issue further, Shinji turned on his heel and walked out of the empty classroom, waving shyly at Ayanami, who remained seated impassively amid a row of empty desks.

* * *

At home, Hikari Horaki hummed to herself as she made her way around the kitchen

Having been left with the responsibility of taking care of her two sisters for much of her young life, the pigtailed girl had grown accustomed to handling menial tasks around the house: cooking, cleaning, and setting a wholesome example for her siblings. She made sure they didn't watch any television shows where people wore bikinis or leather jackets, and blacked out the swear words in the dictionary.

Of all her household tasks, however, cooking was the one responsibility she truly enjoyed, and she now looked forward to sharing the fruits of her labor.

"I hope he likes it," she said to herself as she cut a tomato into thin slices. "I didn't even ask him what he likes."

* * *

Commander Gendo Ikari picked up and put the cell phone to his ear. _A call from the boy._ "What is it." It was not a question, but delivered rather in the flat tone in which he always gave orders.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, phone pressed shakily against his ear, Shinji swallowed the lump in his throat and attempted to configure his mouth to its speaking configuration. "A-ah! Well, uhm.."

The sound of Shinji's mouth calibrating itself for the Japanese language was met with silence on the other end of the line.

"Father! There's, um.. conferences!" he managed to stammer out, then realizing he would need to further clarify, he continued, "A-at school! A parent..conferences."

A bored grunt of acknowledgment.

"Would..like you to come," he explained. "I- I'll be there too."

After a moment of silence, his father spoke. "When is it."

Shinji could swear he heard his father narrowing his eyes over the phone. "T-tomorrow, at 1:00. At school."

Gendo entered the time into his schedule and nodded. "Be punctual."

As Shinji attempted to process this, the line clicked off. Removing it from his ear and looking down at the phone in his hand, he began to realize the implications of what he had just done.

_Father is coming to school tomorrow. _His eyes widened, his lips forming into a frown. _This was what I wanted, but.._ Was he good enough? Would Father be disappointed in him? What would he say? _Oh God, I'll have to _talk _to him again, too. I can't do this!_

Shinji stood and slid open his bedroom door, feeling nauseous from fear and stress. He surmised that the egg salad sandwich he had had for lunch was planning a daring escape from his belly. He propped himself up against the wall, breaking out in a cold sweat, and stepped on something soft and squishy as a stream of German curses filled the air.

"Idiot! Watch where the hell you're going!" Asuka hopped up and down, clutching her foot in pain. "If you think you can just walk all over me, you've got another thing coming!" She was wearing her usual lace nightgown and precariously balancing a half-full glass of milk in her free hand.

Mumbling an apology, Shinji tried his best not to lose his lunch.

"What are you, drunk or something? I know you're a sexual deviant, but I didn't think you were a drug addict too."

"F-father..coming to teacher meeting," he managed to get out, saving his offense for another occasion.

Asuka looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Seriously? Your dad is?"

Shinji nodded shakily. "What..what do I do? I can't.."

"What are you talking about? You can't what?" she scoffed. "You're terrified of your creepy dad?"

He swallowed, noticing his skin turning a sickly shade of green.

"I thought you _wanted_ him to like you. Jeez, how can you expect to get anywhere in life if you don't even know what you want?"

Unable to hold himself together any longer, Shinji ran to the bathroom to finally allow the egg salad release from its captor.

Asuka shouted after him. "Hey! Don't just walk away when I'm-" She looked into the bathroom and crinkled her nose in disgust. "At least shut the door if you're puking!"

"Sorry!" As always, Shinji appreciated his loving family's emotional support.

She rolled her eyes and made her way to the living room, playfully calling after him. "Relax, Third! Even though your dad looks like a pedophile, you're probably too old for him anyway," she laughed as she found a comfortable position on the couch.

* * *

At school the next day, Kensuke glanced idly at Shinji's empty desk. _He's probably doing stuff for Nerv. Man oh man, why can't _I_ be an Eva pilot?_

He had by this point begun to resign himself to the bizarre behavior of his tracksuited friend, and made another attempt to converse with him. "Did you hear? They've got another Evangelion coming!"

"Evangelion?" Toji narrowed his eyes. "Ah didn't know you was a Frenchman. Why's you gotta use all them fancy words?"

The bespectacled boy sighed, running his hand through his hair. "It's an Eva, Toji. You know, the thing Shinji pilots."

Signs of understanding made themselves visible somewhere behind Toji's eyes as he listened. "Onna them metal-mans."

Kensuke nodded sadly.

"We's got enough o' them to feed a pack 'a mules fer a month and they sendin' more?" Toji wondered. "What'd you reckon they do with them majiggers, anyway?"

* * *

"Gee, Miss Misato! I guess Nerv has a really important job! I can't wait to do my part when I grow up!"

Misato chuckled, hiccuping and ruffling the boy's hair. "That's right, Kenji! You can count on Nerv to protect humanity!"

"So why are we at war with the Angels?" the boy asked, pursing his lips.

Misato opened her mouth several times as if to speak but refrained from doing so, realizing that she did not know the answer.

"Cut! Stick to the script, Kenji!" Misato squinted at him in inebriated anger. "Whose kid are you again, anyway?"

* * *

During third period, Kensuke chattered away happily at Toji about AK-47s, ignoring his friend's complete lack of comprehension. A substitute had been called in for the day, while their usual teacher was busy doing parent conferences in another office.

"Toji Suzuhara," a voice called over the intercom, interrupting the friends' one-sided discussion, "Please report to the principal's office, Toji Suzuhara."

Toji jolted up out of his seat. "It warn't me, I swear it!"

Kensuke rolled his eyes . "What'd you do this time?" He didn't really expect an answer, per se, but decided to give it a try anyway.

"'Ell if I know. Left the pigs too long in the pig-leavin' bin, best I can reckon." After a moment, he grinned at Kensuke, much to the dusty-haired boy's surprise, and fumbled around in his back pocket. "Not ta worry, smallboy. I's got mah lucky chimbley sweep-repellin' horshoe," he declared cannily, waving a horseshoe in the air.

Kensuke sighed as his friend walked out into the hall.

* * *

"Yer kiddin'."

Ritsuko Akagi looked patiently from across the desk. "No, Mr. Suzuhara, I'm quite serious. You've been chosen to become a part of the Evangelion project."

Toji scratched his nose. "Yew want me ta' get inna one them metal-mans?"

Sighing, Ritsuko looked down and cleaned her glasses on her shirt. "An Evangelion, yes. Mankind's ultimate defense."

Noting no visible change in the boy's expression, she continued, "There would, of course, be benefits in it for you. As a vital part of the struggle against the Angels, you would be-"

"Angels? Y'mean them things on Hallmark cards with glowin' circles 'round they heads?" Toji guffawed, a laugh Dr. Akagi was uncertain was intended at his own joke, if it even was one.

Fighting the urge to join him in laughter at the sheer absurdity of the situation, she bitterly considered the possibility that the boy was actually laughing at her for even attempting to hold a conversation with him.

"Ah know what them things do to ya." Toji narrowed his eyes. "They's fer stealin' yer _soul_."

* * *

Commander Gendo Ikari glanced at his watch as his gigantic stretch limo came to a halt behind Shinji's school, occupying four complete parking spaces and extending midway out into the adjacent road. He opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement, accompanied by two scowling bodyguards on either side.

The bodyguards kicked open the front entrance to the school and placed their hands on their gun holsters as a crowd of terrified children scrambled out of the way into the nearest classrooms. Commander Ikari pushed up his glasses, looking contemptuously at his surroundings.

Ikari did not have fond memories of his own high school; he had constantly gotten into fights with his fellow classmates, and had once sent a substitute teacher to the hospital. A radioactive crater now occupied the land where his school had once stood; the girl who had turned him down for the senior prom was now the prospective soul for Unit 05. Being a high-ranking member of the organization that controlled most of the world had its perks.

Grabbing a boy by the back of his collar as he attempted escape, Ikari grunted, "Parent-teacher conferences. Where."

The boy's attempts to run were rendered useless by the fact that his helplessly flailing body was held in midair by the Commander's gloved hand. Whimpering in terror, he managed to point to a door marked 403-B, stuttering out a response.

Gendo set the boy down and stalked confidently to the designated office, opening its door and finding only Shinji's teacher inside, an older man whom the aging process had turned into a creature resembling a worn-out leather purse. The bodyguards stood cheek-to-jowl just outside the open door, peering into the room behind their dark shades.

"Where is the boy."

"He hasn't been here," the teacher replied. "I assumed he would be coming with you."

Gendo furrowed his brow. "Disappointing. I ordered him to be prompt."

The teacher sighed. "We're scheduled for the hour; he still has time to get here somehow, I suppose. You don't know where your son is?"

Taking a seat across from the teacher's desk, Gendo shook his head and looked at the empty chair beside him with dissatisfaction.

_This is not part of today's scenario._


	7. Attack of the M&Ms, Part 3

Shinji panted as he ran through the streets of Tokyo-3, feeling that the world was dissolving around around him; everything had become a gray blur, much like the time Misato had made him "Mexican food."

He hadn't wanted to run away, really - had he? Shinji had spent years silently longing for his father's affection, some acknowledgment, _anything_ to show that the distant commander recognized him as more than a means to an end. But when faced with the prospect of actually having to confront his father, he realized he wouldn't wish such a fate on anyone. _Well, okay. Maybe on that one guy-_

Shinji shook his head to clear his thoughts as he continued on his run.

Where would he go now? If he ever went back to work, he'd be faced with his father's cold, disappointed scowl. Wherever he fled, Nerv's extensive security network was sure to track him down before long. Maybe he could become a hobo and sleep in a cardboard box, but at the thought he pictured Asuka dressed in an ermine coat laughing at his filthy rags.

Out of breath, Shinji slumped against a storefront marked "Luigi's Delicious Pizza," clutching a stitch in his side.

_I need to just stop here for a minute and let my head catch up with my feet._

A gruff, accented voice sounded from behind him. "Hey kid, you wanna try a hot calzone or you gonna sit out in the street?" A man emerged from a dark alley past the corner of the building. He was evidently meant to look like a slice of pepperoni pizza, but the costume was so faded and worn that it more resembled the flesh of a burn victim.

Shinji screamed and ran off, now recognizing that any departure from the safer and more populated areas of Tokyo-3 truly meant taking his life into his hands.

The pepperoni man shook his head. "What a rude kid. If he don't like calzones, he could just say so."

* * *

"Cut!"

Misato sighed. The filming of the Nerv PSA series was already taking its toll on her sanity. She had only spent a few short hours reassuring onscreen children of their safety in Nerv's hands, but felt like it had gone on for endless months. She had been forced to recite such contrived, ridiculous slogans as "Nerv: We kill 'em dead so you can rest easily in bed" and "Nerv: Japan's premier exporter of cyborg justice" again and again until they had lost any possible meaning they may have once held.

Her complete lack of filmmaking experience quickly became obvious to all of the other poor souls who had been dragged into the project with her, but Ritsuko had refused to take no for an answer.

_This is just another one of her stupid power trips_, she thought, trying to determine what she had done recently to have her long-time friend stick her with such a stressful, demeaning job. Then again, their friendship had been one barbed insult after another, really; she vaguely recalled having called Ritsuko "Dr. Mengele" after she had insinuated that Misato was a child molester.

Misato glanced around furtively and pulled a half-empty bottle of absinthe out of her purse. She prided herself on her preparedness - knowing that she was in for a day of living hell, she had stopped on her way to work that morning at a dirty liquor shop, where she purchased the absinthe from an eyepatch-wearing man in a ridiculous conical hat. While it wasn't strictly professional to drink alcoholic beverages this strong on the job, she really had no other way of coping with the stress, since beer wasn't doing the trick.

Misato took a long slug from the dust-covered bottle and winced at the acrid taste. As long she didn't take enough to reach hallucinogenic levels, she should be alright.

A five-foot tall squid wearing a bowler hat slowly approached Misato, who desperately tried not to scream.

"God dag," said the apparently Norwegian-speaking squid, tipping his hat. "Velkommen til Norge."

* * *

Toji looked around the school's dirty restroom nervously.

He had asked that thar blond conjure woman if he could make a trip to the watering hole. Toji didn't need to make no water, truth be told, but he had plottin' and schemin' to attend to. They wouldn't put him in one a them metal-mans, no how.

He reckoned there was only one way out, but it'd be an ugly fella of a plan.

* * *

"You mean you really haven't seen him since this morning?" Hikari inquired of her best friend, as the two traversed the hall on the way to lunch.

Asuka shook her head. "Nah," she said. "The weirdo was all worked up about having to see his dad today. He's probably been off breathing into a paper bag somewhere for the past three hours."

"Oh, that's.." The pigtailed brunette looked at the floor as she walked alongside Asuka.

"Pathetic?"

Hikari sighed.

"Look, don't worry about it. He's probably fine," Asuka reassured her. "I'm surprised you're not more worried about whatever trouble the jock got himself into."

Passing by the bathrooms, Asuka gave a contemptuous jerk of her head in their direction.

"Actually, Shinji's probably hiding in the bathroom, crying or something. Like _always_."

Hikari looked at her friend. "Shouldn't you try to talk to him?"

"No way! I'm not going in there for him. What kind of girl do you think I am, Hikari?"

Taken aback, Hikari blushed at the implication. "I- I just meant..you probably know him better than anyone, Asuka. You really should try to help."

Grumbling, Asuka opened the bathroom door, ignoring Hikari's mumbled protests about getting "boy stuff" on her hand from touching the doorknob, and was greeted by a particularly bizarre scene.

Toji's shirt, socks, and shoes lay strewn about the floor, a message scrawled crudely on the mirror in a dripping red substance. Three single-serving ketchup packets had been left in one of the sinks.

"'_We done killed Toji'_?" Asuka read the message aloud, her arms raised in disbelief. "Seriously?"

Hikari sighed. "He's made such a mess. I wonder what happened, for him to make such a scene..."

There was a brief, awkward silence while the girls looked at the scene spread out before them.

"We should probably.."

"Yeah..."

"I'll help you find your idiot if you help me find mine."

"Thanks Asuka."

* * *

Standing in the school parking lot, Gendo Ikari pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Subcommander Fuyutsuki's number.

"Boy's gone," Gendo growled in his typical laconic fashion. "Send the tracking pelicans."

The Subcommander sighed. "Sir, the UN had us cancel that project six months ago. Genetically modified pelicans don't have much practical military application."

Gendo grunted. "Send helicopter."

* * *

Misato squinted at Rei Ayanami. "Remember your lines?"

"I believe 'Rar' is the only significant morpheme included in my script," she replied.

Misato had recruited Rei to play the role of an Angel in one of the three PSAs being shot that day; she was dressed as a trapezoidal monster with Styrofoam wings and standing over a bed in which the unfortunate Kenji cowered under the covers.

"Right. And after you say your line, Captain Nerv shows up and saves the day."

Lt. Shigeru Aoba rolled his eyes from his position off-stage. He was wearing tights and a hastily improvised superhero costume with a red Nerv logo on the front.

Misato backed off-stage, nearly tripping over a wire in the process, and lifted up her megaphone.

"Action!"

Rei walked up to the bed slowly, eyelids half-shut with apathy. "Rar," she politely informed Kenji.

"Cut! Rei, you've got to have more passion! You don't seem to _believe _you're a trapezoid," said Misato, doing her best to imitate the directors she had seen in movies.

"I am not a trapezoid," Rei replied, narrowing her eyebrows slightly.

Misato sighed. "Rei, movies are all about becoming things you aren't."

"I see," replied Rei, eyes wide with understanding. A new world of possibilities opened up before her; she could, in fact, become a trapezoid via the ethereal magic of moving picture technology.

Smiling complacently, Misato shoved Rei back into position. _Maybe this directing stuff isn't so bad after all_, she mused. _If only that_ thing _would_-

The Norwegian squid walked across the sound stage towards Misato, leaving a slimy trail of mucus behind him as he went.

"Wold du a se en fjord?" asked the squid, extending a slimy tendril.

"Get away from me, you f-filthy lump of calamari!" Misato shrieked at Rei, flailing her arms wildly to shield her face. "Squids can't even talk!"

Rei looked at her in puzzlement for a moment before realizing what had occurred. _I am not a squid, but I can be one through the imaginative energy inherent in the art of cinema_, she told herself with a knowing half-smile. _I've so much to learn._

* * *

Having had any exploratory urges scared out of him by his encounter on the outskirts of town, Shinji established a safe distance between himself and the pizza parlor and eventually found his way back into Neo-Shinjuku Central Park, a far more familiar and inviting area than the shanty town he had just narrowly escaped from. He had been to the park several times with Toji and Kensuke, and once with Asuka, who had beaned him multiple times with a Frisbee, probably on purpose; while he was more likely to be discovered here by his father's agents, he figured that he was also in notably less danger of any further snack-related assaults. It seemed a fair tradeoff.

Shinji glanced at his surroundings, noting with relief that there appeared to be relatively few people in the park that day. There was a decent chance that some of the park's inhabitants were plainclothes Section 2 agents, he figured, and so tried to blend in as well as he could and avoid making eye contact. He was reasonably certain a trash can had been moving slowly along the gravel pavement behind him, but decided not to risk investigating it.

A river snaked around the middle of the park and flowed onwards through the industrial section of Tokyo-3. Shinji wrinkled his nose as he approached the wooden bridge intersecting the river and was met with a smell reminiscent of Pen Pen's after a meal of raw krill. The water itself was a color not unlike that of a melted candy bar, and appeared to have the consistency of one as well. A discarded boot bobbed up and down on the surface accompanied by what looked to be the remains of a dead dog. Shinji _hoped _it was the remains of a dog, at any rate; he had heard some unsettling rumors about the Yakuza's activities in the area.

A battered wooden raft, apparently handmade, floated through the murky brook. Its sole occupant was barefoot and had his pants rolled up to his knees. He had his back turned to Shinji, but as he steered the raft with a gnarled tree branch, he sang out proudly in a voice the pilot found immediately familiar.

"Lordy lordy, this 'ere's the life, floatin' along this ere fine river an' livin' off the land," said the rafter to no one in particular.

Shinji ran to the side of the stream and shouted down the bank. "Toji?"

The rafter turned around at the call. If he recognized Shinji, he gave no outward sign of it. "Yessa?" he asked between calculated chews of a piece of straw.

"What are you doing down there on that thing?" Shinji said.

"What 'm I doin' up 'ere?" Toji repeated, as though the answer were the most obvious thing in the world. "What 're _you_ doin' up yonder? Git down 'ere!"

Confused but still curious, Shinji determined that accompanying Toji on his river journey could at least postpone the inevitable and distract him from his thoughts for a while. Toji pulled the raft up alongside the edge of the bank to allow him on, and the travelers began their new life together.

* * *

Author's Note: We apologize for the shorter-than-usual update. And if there's anyone still reading this, reviews are always welcome. I-if you don't mind. ._.


	8. Attack of the M&Ms, Part 4

Hikari and Asuka, having ascertained that Toji and Shinji were nowhere on the school grounds, spent the better part of the hour wandering through Tokyo-3 together in search of their missing classmates, checking all the locations they could best figure would be the stooges' usual haunts.

They had searched the arcade first; Asuka delayed the search for several hours when she fell into the irresistible clutches of Goretron VII, hitting her friend up for quarters every time she lost a life.

Stopping to rest on a sidewalk bench, Hikari sighed. "It's no use, Asuka. They could be anywhere. I don't know where else we could look." She held her phone to her chest, considering another attempt to dial Toji or Shinji but not expecting an answer. _Why don't they have their phones? _She slumped in her seat. _Maybe they don't want to be found._

"Well," Asuka muttered grudgingly, "there is one other place." She gave her friend an almost apologetic look, something quite rare for her. "But you're not going to like it."

* * *

Misato looked across the table at blond scientist. The woman looked familiar enough, but she didn't recall the head of Project E being so blurry, or there being three of her. To make matters worse, the table seemed to be melting.

"The Fourth has proven insufficie- are you even listening to me, Misato?" Ritsuko glared at her old friend, whose habitual work-related alcohol consumption seemed to have increased dramatically since her workload had increased.

"Of coursh I am. The forth flowth within all of uth, and all that.."

"Misato..."

Misato leaned forwards to rest her head upon her arms, shrieking and recoiling when one of them sprouted eyes and stared coldly back at her.

Ritsuko narrowed her eyes and sipped her coffee, ignoring her friend's outburst. "We have reason to suspect that the Fourth Child is developmentally disabled, in ways that would hinder his piloting ability. We're going to have to go with the second choice."

"Ishn't Asuka retarded too?" Misato asked. "She keepsh saying made up words like 'Guten Morgen,' but Rits, she's the best damn pilot we've got."

"Forget it." Sighing and recognizing that the Major had rendered herself incapable of decision-making for the time being, Ritsuko stood and went to arrange for Kensuke Aida's pickup.

* * *

Hikari's eyes widened in disbelief as she and Asuka turned a corner to see a building highlighted by pink and blue neon signs. "'Crazy Steve's Discount House of Adult Videos'?"

"I know, I know.." Asuka grumbled. "The idiot said the other idiot drags him here sometimes, hoping they'll find a nudie magazine on the sidewalk or something. It's retarded."

Hikari blanched, her knees buckling in shock at the depths of perversion and decadence that Asuka's words had opened up before her. "That's horrible!"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "What'd I tell you? Boys are perverts."

She watched with an arched eyebrow as Hikari's blush expanded to cover the entire surface area of her body. Even her eyebrows seemed somehow ruddier than usual.

"W-wha.. well we just.. we can't just go _in_ there, Asuka!"

Asuka shrugged. "Don't worry, Hikari. Any pervert who comes near us'll be eating oatmeal through a straw for the rest of their lives."

"But-"

"No buts!" She grabbed Hikari's arm and began to pull her toward the entrance. "C'mon, where else would those two morons end up? We're going in there to find- eek!" Asuka found her other arm in a grasp much stronger than either hers or Hikari's. She jerked her head to the right and saw that she was in the grip of an man wearing a black trenchcoat and holding a switchblade in one hand. His thick glasses completed the degenerate appearance established by his wispy mustache, scruffy goatee and wild, unkempt hair.

"Get your hands off of me, you perverted scum!" barked Asuka, as Hikari screamed uncontrollably at no one in particular.

_I told her! I knew we shouldn't be here! Now we're going to be killed, or raped, or, or, oh God! We're going to be locked in this guy's basement until he's used us all u-_

Hikari's panicked thoughts came to a halt as she noticed that the man was already lying sprawled on the dirty pavement, his glasses broken. Asuka lowered her foot, having evidently given him a flying kick to the face.

"Wow! I didn't know you could do stuff like that!" said Hikari, forgetting for the moment that they had nearly become statistics.

"Oh, that's nothing," Asuka told her with a wink. "I've had all kinds of martial art-"

A series of sharp, rapid gunshots interrupted Asuka's braggadocio, and the man twitching on the ground became suddenly motionless. "Golly gee jiminy jeepers!" said Hikari, screaming obscenities in terror.

Asuka looked around at the adjacent rooftops; all of them were swarming with men in black suits holding various automatic weapons. As she returned her gaze to ground-level, she observed that a formally-attired man, heavy-set with dark sunglasses appeared in front of them, apparently having taken advantage of some loophole in the space-time continuum.

"What the hell was that all about?" she demanded testily as Hikari clung to her arm in fear. "I had the situation under control until you Section 2 goons got in the way."

The man adjusted his glasses, unamused. "That man you just encountered was a serial rapist. One of the most notorious in the area, in fact. Hideaki's made a business of abducting and molesting young girls like yourselves. He sells them into prostitution once he's had his 'fun' with them; most of them are never heard from again. We've been after him for years."

Hikari hid behind Asuka, trying not to look too closely at the man's mangled body. "W-well he's..he's d..dead now, right?"

The man nodded stoically. "You two are lucky to have made it out alright. What were you doing in such a dangerous part of the city?"

"Trying to find where Shi- the Third Child and his jock friend ran off to," Asuka told him. "The moron was scared of his dad and now we can't find either of them anywhere." _This city is full of such creeps... he'd better not have gotten in any trouble._

Looking at the girls seriously, the agent cleared his throat. "We've been tracking the pilots all day. They're perfectly safe. Sometimes it's necessary to let them run free for a while, get some stress out of them." He removed his glasses. "Let's get you two back to school, shall we?"

_Pilots? _Asuka thought. _Was that plural? Oh God, he couldn't mean.._

_

* * *

_

Toji swung his right leg idly from side to side as he lay on the raft, looking up at the sky. Shinji was sitting next to him in a fetal position, imagining the horrible medical experiments Dr. Akagi would perform on him after they were caught.

"Ain't nothin' like raftin' on the ol' river," said Toji, chewing his straw. "Iss' been preserv'd by the city sanification fellers real good; y'can tell on account'a you's can see all the way down thar to Tambuckt-tu at th' bottom."

Shinji blinked and looked down at the river. It looked muddy enough to walk across, and a dead, four-eyed fish was drifting by on its side.

"Toji, I'm pretty sure this is where Nerv dumps their hazardous waste," he sighed, idly wondering why he had even bothered opening his mouth as he met Toji's uncomprehending stare.

"I don' reckon none' 'bout such a tomfooled idea," the jock told him, crossing his arms. "Y'think this'un's easy to fool, but I gotta good head on me. That's 'ut my paps telled me when I got dropped." He raised his arms, making some strange gestures that Shinji assumed he had intended to somehow represent the concept of "father". "'Dis boy a fighter,' he say, 'dis boy ain't do no monkey-rootin' in _he_ hibiscus, he mo' den dat. He _know_ a thing.'" Toji raised an eyebrow, smirking proudly.

Shinji did not attempt to interpret this.

"Wa-hey, look ova' there!" Toji jumped up excitedly, nearly falling off the raft as he stumbled to his feet, pointing at what appeared to be an abandoned shack amongst the trees, covered in overgrowth.

Shinji looked over at the vine-plagued wooden structure uncertainly, wondering what exactly Toji found so enthralling. He determined firstly that he would probably find out soon, and secondly that it would most likely negatively impact the quality of his life.

Toji turned around to face Shinji, leaning over him with his eyes wide. "Y'see that ol' shed? C'mon, lessee if the'se any bodies been left off in it."

Shinji winced, mentally checking off the "yes" box next to each of his predictions as Toji pulled the raft ashore. Toji's unwitting companion was not looking forward to the next leg of their impromptu adventure. _How did I let myself get into this again?_

* * *

"Oh man oh man oh man!" shrieked the recently-designated fourth child Kensuke Aida as Ritsuko disgustedly tossed his new plugsuit at him. "This is the greatest day of my life!"

Ritsuko already hoped by this point that Aida would become the first human to have mental contact with an Angel, so that she would be able to vivisect him.

"I won't let you down!" Aida proudly announced, addressing everyone on the bridge as he stumbled into his plugsuit one leg at a time. He had thrown off his clothes in his eagerness to put on the suit, much to the horror of the onlooking control crew. "I'll kill all the Angels with my bare hands if I have to!"

Misato tried desperately to retain her balance and ignore the Norwegian squid caressing Aida with its mucous-encrusting tendrils.

Ritsuko sighed. "Well, before you get into the Eva, there's a series of injections you'll need first," she improvised. There was no such protocol, but she figured she probably had some relatively harmless syringes lying around her office. _Just something to wipe that stupid grin off his face._

Aida had dropped to his knees and was kissing the floor. "I can't believe I'm touching the inside of Nerv HQ! I'm so happy!" he cried, choking back tears.

* * *

Hikari and Asuka sat in the back of a black limousine as the man in dark sunglasses drove them along the winding, deserted back road to Nerv. Hikari was listening idly to Asuka grumble about idiots, perverts, and perverted idiots when the car ran over what sounded like a rather heavy object, leading the driver to hastily hit the brakes.

The driver swore under his breath, opened his door, and turned back towards the girls. "Wait here," he growled. "I'm checking the tire."

As soon as he had turned his back on them, Asuka grabbed Hikari's left arm and grinned conspiratorially at her. "Hey," she whispered loudly, "Now's our chance! Let's go find those idiots."

Hikari hesitated. "But..."

"Rules are made for the ignorant masses, not the elite like us," said Asuka, her lips curled smugly. "Besides, we can't leave stupid Shinji on his own or he'll...put his hand in a toaster or something."

Hikari frowned skeptically at her. "Does he really do that?"

Asuka nodded, a knowing smirk on her face as she pulled Hikari out through the car door. She opened her mouth to protest, but Asuka, still retaining her grip on Hikari's arm, began to sprint across the pavement. Hikari felt herself lulled into submission, the backs of Asuka's A-10 clips exerting a strangely hypnotic influence on her.

By the time Hikari regained her ability for rational thought, they had already gone several blocks. Asuka came to an abrupt halt, the two girls panting for breath. Hikari glanced around nervously.

"Asuka, are you sure you know where we're going?" she asked timidly.

Her friend waved her hand impatiently. "Of course I know where we are! I'm a college graduate, remember? That's North over there," she said, pointing.

Hikari frowned. "I don't think the sun sets in the North, Asuka." The sky was already becoming orange and pink, elongated shadows slowly creeping their way over the street.

Asuka flinched slightly at that, then regained her confidence and folded her arms impatiently. "I was pointing to European North. You backwards Japanese wouldn't understand."

Hikari remained silent, a little awed by Asuka's worldliness. She was suddenly struck by the shabbiness of her surroundings; garbage covered the sidewalk, the apartments were little more than clapboard shacks, and a band of ragged homeless men stood a few feet away between a flaming trash can and a gigantic pile of scrap metal. She wondered how Asuka managed to so consistently end up getting lost in such ruinous domains.

Hikari frowned, noticing that one of the homeless men seemed vaguely familiar. "Hey, Asuka," she whispered, her hand over her mouth, "Isn't that...Mark Zuckerberg? I think I read about him in Pre-Second-Impact History. I think he was part of Christopher Columbus' expedition to Antarctica," she said, accurately recalling her textbook's mangled account of early world history.

"Oh, him?" Asuka replied animatedly, attracting the unwanted attention of the man and several of his companions. "He went bankrupt when the telepathic social networking sites like Facermerge took off," said Asuka, eager to display her superior knowledge.

Asuka glanced over at the group of homeless men, her eyes suddenly lighting up as she met the gaze of a man with a ragged ski cap and five o'clock shadow. "Hey! I know you!" she exclaimed with a grin, running over to him as if asking a celebrity for an autograph. "You're that idiot Shiro Tokita!"

The man scowled at the two girls, adjusting his dirty ski cap. "You're an Eva pilot, aren't ya? You're the second one Nerv's sent over here to bust my kneecaps."

"Jeez, I was just trying to be friendly!" Asuka said, pouting indignantly.

"Friendly my ass!" Tokita shouted, leaning in towards her. "I know you creeps sabotaged my project somehow, and I'm goin' to find out and clear my name with the investors, just you wait! It's yer fault I'm out on the streets, livin' in Jet Alone!" Tokita's snarling face was perilously close to Asuka's by this point.

"Living in-" Asuka looked up over Tokita's imposing figure and saw the heap of scrap metal as if for the first time; the rusted mass was in fact a vaguely humanoid shape in a seated position, its gangly, over-sized arms hugging its knees and its head slumping sullenly between them.

Asuka cheerfully turned to her bewildered friend. "C'mon, Hikari! Let's see if this piece of junk still works!"

"Whaaa?"

"See ya 'round!" Asuka waved to Tokita as though expecting this to be the end of their meeting, pulling Hikari across the vacant lot towards the dirt-encrusted mech-turned-mobile-home as Hikari and Tokita both shouted after in her in bafflement.

Asuka swung herself onto a black stepladder on the robots back and began to deftly climb towards an entry hatch, grunting cheerfully. Tokita and Hikari clumsily followed her up the stepladder, Tokita angrily shouting his doubts about the relative chastity of Asuka's mother. Ignoring him, Asuka unscrewed the five-foot hatch and let the door fall to the ground, the metal projectile narrowly missing Tokita's head on the way down. She swung herself acrobatically into the control room, glancing enthusiastically around. Tokita and Hikari stumbled in after her.

Gasping for breath, Tokita watched in horror as Asuka eagerly studied the intimidating array of control panels. "G-girls, this is a highly sophisticated piece of machinery!" he shouted.

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, rolling her eyes and pushing a few buttons apparently at random as Hikari watched with interest.

Thinking quickly of an excuse in the vain hope that it would put an end to the girl's curiosity, the engineer warned, "It's not equipped for use without networking into the command center! You can't make it move by itself!"

"Pfft, that's easy!" Unfazed, Asuka instructed her unwitting companions, "Tokita, you get out and push to give us a start. Hikari, that green button over there is probably the gas."


End file.
